The Edge. (Of Glory?)

Words.

"Welcome to the new Washington normal: endless rounds of legislative carjacking.

...One side wanted the car, had a gun and wasn’t afraid — certainly not afraid enough — to use it. The other had a child in the back seat.

Those who blame Democrats or President Obama for being lousy negotiators fail to appreciate the fundamentally asymmetric nature of the current bargaining. You cannot practice the art of the possible with a party that insists on finger painting with a single color: spending cuts only.

...There is no shortage of hostages, and no reason to imagine that the hostage-takers are anything but emboldened. If anything, the worry is that the tactic extends beyond the fiscal arena. Case in point: the refusal of Senate Republicans to confirm any head to the new consumer financial protection agency unless the law is changed to their liking.

The surprise wasn’t that things went down to the wire. They always do. If Sasha and Malia get their homework done days in advance, they are unusual children. Washington, like the rest of the world, works on deadline.

The surprise was that the ordinary rules of political physics, of opposing gravitational forces counterbalancing each other, appeared to have been suspended. Usually these disputes unfold in choreographed fashion, toward a predictable if 11th-hour ending. This one was less minuet than mosh pit.

...Politicians tend to be a glass-half-full bunch — how could they persist otherwise? In conversations with lawmakers of both parties over the last few days, many expressed hope that renewed public focus on the debt had created demand for future action.

But this was coupled with a recurrent undertone of deep concern about whether the modern political system remains capable of avoiding future trips to the brink. President Obama questioned whether the country has a “AAA political system to match our AAA rating.”

If there were a rating agency for political systems, it would be moving to downgrade."

THE WASHINGTON POST: The GOP’s carjacking on Capitol Hill