Quite sanguine.

Editor,

Please don't ask me to remember every time the president has caved in to Republican extremists in the U.S. House of Representatives. Someone good at lists can remember them for me.

My point is that the current situation is why you do not negotiate with terrorists: it emboldens them to make more and ever crazier demands.

Soon President Obama is going to be faced with the first default by the U.S. on its debt in history because he has made a habit of caving in to Republican terrorists in the past.

Republican terrorists are crazy enough to crash the world economy; Mr. Obama seems to think that he is the most grown-up person in Washington. So his inclination is obviously to acquiesce to them for the higher purpose of keeping the world economy afloat.

I find this fascinating given how "resolute" the president is when it comes to bombing villages in Pakistan or snatching and grabbing peasants in Yemen or Somalia.

Breeding gun-toting terrorists is at least as bad as encouraging the financial kind, and yet when it comes to the blowback or hatred sowed by killing or backing the wrong person in a tribal society he is quite sanguine.

Re: "Senate Rejects House’s Terms on Budget With Shutdown Near" (10/1/2013)