NO COMPROMISE. I don't have high hopes for the resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis, particularly with the addition of a balanced budget amendment to the Boehner plan. Our opinion leaders appear to see the situation as this New York Daily News cover portrays it -- two sides being unreasonable. But it's the Republicans who are proposing big changes consonant with the agenda of their most radical constituents. And while the GOP jumps to please its Tea Party peeps, Democrats don't seem to hear their further-left members at all; the Reid plan is basically a softcore version of the Republicans'.

In other words, all the movement has been in the Republicans' direction, as the cannier conservatives have noted. If the Democrats really believe that massive cuts will further weaken the economy, they're doing a great job of concealing it. The situation offers little hope that significant new tax revenue from our wealthiest fellow-citizens will be included in whatever deal gets done. All the burden will be borne out here in Little People Land.

So a desperate GOP, holding only the House and strongly influenced by its fringe, yet pulls the country further right; and the Democrats, with the Senate and the White House, follow along, dragging their feet a little. Things may change, but they'd have to go awfully far in reverse before this becomes anything like what is traditionally called a compromise.