Here's the result of negotiating with hostage-takers:
This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) confirmed [...] that Republicans will hold the debt ceiling hostage in the future, saying, this debate “set the template for the future”:
MCCONNELL: It set the template for the future. In the future, Neil, no president—in the near future, maybe in the distant future—is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.
That just confirms what the Republicans' messiah, Grover Norquist,
said about the deal earlier in the day.
So, yeah, they changed Washington. Here's the precedent for every (Democratic) president in the nation's future.