Imagine you are a hostage negotiator. A crazed terrorist has a doomsday nuclear device hidden where no one can reach it. He also has a remote control detonation device and his finger is on the red button that will trigger the explosion. If he detonates the bomb it will possibly kill 300 million people.

The terrorist claims he will push the button unless his demands are met: (1) He wants his closest 2000 friends to all be paid $1 Billion Dollars apiece and (2) He insists that 2 Trillion dollars be taken from the poorest people in the country. The terrorist claims that only by submitting to his demands will he be take his finger of the button (though he won’t disarm the bomb or give you the remote control device).

After speaking to this terrorist for over 10 hours you are believe only one thing about him: He’s flat out crazy insane. You fear he really is willing to kill everyone, even himself and his friends, unless he gets everything he wants. His friends promise you they can convince him not to do this provided you give him something, anything to make him happy, and they outwardly don’t appear concerned, but you don’t trust them. What do you do?

Sound familiar?

Now, consider the current negotiations over the debt ceiling.

Wall Street, the Tea Party Caucus, the GOP Leadership, the President and the Congressional Democrats are all playing high stakes poker. The Democrats cards are all on the table. The Republicans’ cards are all hidden. Wall Street is at the table but hasn’t placed any bets yet, though everyone knows they’re backing the GOP’s play.

Wall Street says to all who will listen that a debt ceiling default would be a terrible thing, but that they aren’t all that concerned. They either think that the Tea Party caucus will do what they’re told and take the best deal offered or that they can ride out the storm should the US default on its debts. They’re too big to fail, right? In the meantime they are drooling over the possibility of getting rid of those pesky financial reforms that threaten to cut into their profit margins should they ever be enforced, and hoping a few other bones (like getting rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or at least getting it defunded).

The GOP leadership thinks ultimately the Tea Party Caucus will do what they’re told to do also and will fold their hand, though Boehner and the rest aren’t quite as optimistic as Wall Street since they’ve had a lot more “up close and personal” contact with their freshman and women crazies. In the meantime, however, Boehner and Co. are being opportunistic. They keep pointing to the Tea Party caucus and saying to Obama and the Dems something like this:

“You know, these guys are plumb loco. Even we don’t know what they’ll do. You better give us something and it better be a big enough carrot or we won’t be able to insure that the nutcases in our caucus won’t push that debt default button and blow up the economy. Now you know that;s the last thing we want, but shucks, those Teabaggers just won’t listen to little old us. We suggest you give them as much as possible. And tax cuts, don’t forget more tax cuts. I’m sure that would help bunches.”

Now many of the progressive Dems (probably most of them) think it’s all a damn bluff. They believe the Tea Party is playing the Mad Man card, just like Tricky Dicky used to do with the Soviet Union and the North Vietnamese. They know that the cuts to Social Security and Medicare that the Tea Party is demanding are opposed by the public by large majorities, and have made the Tea Party politicians extremely unpopular. They also know that if they agree to any deal that includes such cuts, the Republicans and their corporate allies will use it against Obama and them next year in the general election.

But the progressive caucus in the House and Senate don’t have much sway with the President who holds all the Democratic Party’s chips. He knows that in the end, they;ll probably do what he asks, or enough of them will. The President also knows that there is a significant number of Conserva-Dems (otherwise known as Blue Dogs) who think cutting Social Security and Medicare might not be that bad an idea (at least for them personally).

The president also has a slew of economic advisers telling him that even in the best case scenario, a debt default will do irreparable harm to our economy and reputation. As for the worst case — well, it might be the final grain of sand that triggers a collapse of the sand castle we call the world economy, causing a global depression and God knows what else. No one can tell him what the exact odds are of any particular outcome. Indeed, he’s probably getting conflicting advice from everyone to whom he talks regarding the consequences of a default.

What’s worse, though he can’t know for certain if the Tea Party caucus will hold together or not when push comes to shove, he knows for a fact that quite a few of them are as bat shit insane as that hypothetical terrorist with his doomsday device I introduced to you at the beginning of this post. As for the rest of the Republicans, he knows (or should know by now) he can’t trust a word they say. He knows that, in the back of their minds, they figure if the worst case comes true they and their friends in the media will be able to find a way to blame it on him, and if that happens all bets are off regarding his re-election.

So, what does he do? What he has been doing.

He lets people float trial balloons one day about cuts to our social safety net, then says he doesn’t support them the next or the cuts he’s willing to make are minor or something else that tries to downplay the possibility that you and I might see our benefits go bye-bye. He keeps talking to everyone and making appearances and leaking information, all in an effort to try to position himself as best he can to be viewed as the man in the White Hat just trying his damnedest to save the day.

However, he also knows that regardless of what happens, he’s still going to be viewed by a whole lot of people like that Sheriff in Blazing Saddles, i.e., a black man who should never have been given the badge in the first place, and who everyone (even many of his supporters) think isn’t up to the job.

What’s worse, he doesn’t have a white sidekick gunslinger like Gene Wilder who has his back (he has Joe Biden, and Biden is no Gene Wilder). If anything, a lot of the people he is relying upon for help have at least one foot in the Wall Street camp, or are looking to blame him for not doing enough earlier in his first two years on the job, even though quite a few of those people actively worked to undermine him back then, from both the right and left sides of his party. He’s learned the hard way that Beltway politics isn’t like Chicago politics, particularly when you’re the man in the Oval Office and a Democrat to boot.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the judges are all corrupt assholes in the pockets of his opponents? If you don’t believe me, just think about Citizens United for a while.

To tell the truth, I don’t envy him.