One of the oldest tricks in the negotiating book is when you know you’re entitled to anything (or relatively little) but you start out anyway by asking for the Sun, the Moon and the Stars and then just proceed to squawk and be cantankerous until you invariably get the other party to give you something more than you were originally entitled to.

This technique has got to be the bread and butter of real estate, not to mention every trial lawyer who asks for a Bahzillion dollars in damages to compensate his or her client for “…damages associated with trouble falling asleep for the past couple of weeks.”

If they Republicans don’t snooker Obama with this time and again I’ll publicly eat my shorts. And then again, it may be the case that Obama and his Republicans are running a variant of this same on public opinion to appease the same pool of special interest money.

Remember, just because somebody voices their pipe dream it doesn't mean there is one iota of entitlement associated with it. You shouldn't feel bad about your denying them the entire dream especially if the dream is simply bad.