The idea of freezing the pay of federal workers could be a sensible part of a larger, long-term deal that would combine spending reductions with tax increases. It’s an obvious element in any negotiation. But Obama simply threw in the federal workers in exchange for – well, as best I can tell, nothing. And in the short term, shouldn’t jobs and rising incomes be a higher priority than austerity?

Worse, every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, including those for millionaires who are in rather less need of additional income than security workers at Logan or nurses at government hospitals…

What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party’s single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided – and not getting much help from its president.