I like both the metaphor and the substance!

From Woody over at The Well-Armed Lamb:

At The HCR Table, Was Prez. Shamwow Playing Bridge at a Poker Game?
... he [Tom Tomorrow] gets at the thing that has always bothered me about Prez. Shamwow's "negotiating style," his fundamental weakness, his apparent willingness to have negotiated away what the negotiation was supposedly to be about even before the negotiations have begun.

The metaphor, "Playing bridge at a poker game", is just quirky enough to make sense.

This willingness to give away the farm BEFORE negotiations have even started seems characteristic not just of Obama, but of the entire Democratic leadership. Why else would Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) kill single-payer before it even came up in committee last June???

Why was Speaker Pelosi so quick to take the public option OUT OF the reconcialition package... THIS WEEK???

It is particularly galling that these concessions to achieve so-called bipartisanship are then met with well-coordinated obstructionism by the loyal opposition.

As Atrios has noted:

The whole point of forging a compromise is to... get a deal done. I don't get why Democrats like to stick with the compromise even when there's no deal.

Sigh.