Via Eliana Johnson at NRO, David Gergen comes to the same conclusion that most of us did after the election — that Barack Obama and the Democrats aren’t really interested in solving the massive number of problems in the fiscal cliff coming in less than four weeks.  Their priority is to inflict as much damage on House Republicans as possible, and if that inflicts damage on America, well, you gotta break a few eggs to make omelettes, too.

But since this election, there’s been — I think it’s the Democrats are the ones who are really trying to rub it in and almost humiliate the Republicans, and that’s not going to get to a bargain.  Again, I think it has to be win-win. … You hear among some Democrats right now, and it’s disturbing, that maybe we ought to just take it over the cliff, that’ll, we’ll score political points against the Republicans, that will force their hands in the new year.  That is a very, very, dangerous risk.

Is it?  Only if the media reports on it.  So far, though, the media seems more focused on Republicans and their supposed intransigence, even though John Boehner’s opening offer put the supposed “grand bargain” of August 2011 back on the table — and Obama demanded twice as much revenue with half the cuts in some gauzy point in the future.  At least for now, the media is making brinksmanship a relatively risk-free strategy while Obama campaigns rather than negotiates in good faith.