Let the President take some lessons from Harry Reid.
"“The American people will not be extorted by Tea Party anarchists.”
“It is embarrassing that these people who were elected to represent the country are representing the Tea Party, the anarchists of the country.”
Harry Reid knows that a policy of Appeasement toward the Tea Party Republicans will only encourage them. Every time President Obama accedes to some or all of their demands it just encourages them to continue their strategy of demanding concessions from Democrats and cuts in non-Defense discretionary spending. They threaten shutting down the government or forcing a Debt Ceiling Default, and we abandon our principles and policy objectives to appease them.
I do not understand why President Obama is holding meetings with GOP Senators to negotiate anything so long as the government Shutdown continues and the debt ceiling has not been raised. President Obama has repeatedly said he will not negotiate with a gun to his head, but now he is quite publicly negotiating.
What is worse, is that there is no evidence to suppose that what GOP Senators propose can even be voted on in the House of Representatives, so long as Speaker Boehner keeps anything bottled up that isn't to the liking of his Tea Party terrorists.
Laurence Lewis currently has an excellent diary http://www.dailykos.com/... that very clearly lays out what is at stake in these twin crises, and the calamity that will accompany anything other that an Unconditional Surrender by the Tea Party Republicans.
The evidence is overwhelming that a significant and growing majority of the American people are angry at the Tea Party Republicans (and there is no other kind) for causing the government Shutdown and threatening a government Default.
By publicly meeting with GOP Senators in the Whitehouse, the President gives legitimacy to the cries that "both parties" are to blame for the stand-off, which in turn emboldens the GOP hardliners to continue the stand-off, for even if they don't get what they want they can get off the hook for creating the crisis. And worse, when President Obama talks directly to Tea Party Republicans, a lot of Democrats get very edgy that the President is about to capitulate to all of their demands in order to obtain a "Grand Bargain".
John Boehner, Ted Cruz, Dave Reichert (WA-8), and the other Tea Party Republicans OWN THIS CRISIS. It is exclusively of their own making. It would be crazy to bail them out while the American public are burying them.
Lets just stick with Harry Reid, who also had this to say about negotiating with Republicans while the government is shut down:
"Not going to happen."