In other words, they hold all the cards.

[phantom power]

Shuster points out that the political environment isn't exactly friendly right now but Breaux insists that the president can fix that:

Breaux: Well you have to help create it. A leader and a president can do this. Bring them in and say "look, we're not going to leave this room until we get some type of a framework about how we're going to do this budget. If we just want to beat each other up fine, but everybody loses if we do that. The country loses."

I don't know why he keeps saying "they both lose." Whether the country loses is one thing. But the fact is that one party will win and one party will lose and the Republicans have made it crystal clear that they believe that by obstructing Obama's agenda they don't think it will be them. I guess they could change their minds, but I've seen nothing to indicate that. What they see as advantageous is having the president put it all on the line for bipartisanship and then saying, "see, he can't deliver on his promises" when they fail to meet him halfway. It's a suckers play. If they can get him to compromise on something that's of great importance to his supporters (the very best kind of compromise from their perspective) they get what they want and he loses the base. If they simply obstruct, it makes him look like he can't lead at all. In other words, they hold all the cards. And they only have 41 votes in the Senate.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/grown-ups-by-digby-david-shuster.html

[glitch]

1. They only hold all the cards if we refuse to toss the table.

You know, the table that the impeachment of traitors and war profiteers is off of? If they continually refuse to play by the rules of this state we have established, eventually we are going to have to toss it.