Bashir: Rules for fiscal cliff ‘hostage’ negotiation

>>> has made it abundantly clear that republicans are at this very moment involved in a hostage taking because they will not allow 98% of americans to see their taxes stay the same if the top 2% are to see their taxes go up.

>> it's unacceptable for some republicans in congress to hold middle class tax cuts hostage simply because they refuse to let tax rates go up on the wealthiest americans .

>> hostage negotiators around the world agree that there are three essential components to any resolution. first, it's essential to have one primary negotiator. but this is speaker boehner 's number one problem. there's the lobbyist grover norquist who has issued threats against any republicans who might break their promise to never raise taxes. speaker boehner is also being pulled and harangued by an extreme group of tea partiers wlo would happily tip the economy back into recession rather than compromise with this president. and we haven't even mentioned paul ryan and his brutal budget of austerity. so republicans are having trouble deciding who really is the primary negotiator. the second requirement, again, according to law enforcement , is that hostage negotiators must minimize any background distractions. but for the last three weeks, republicans have engaged in a pointless pursuit of u.n. ambassador susan rice . instead of focusing on the fiscal cliff and without the president ever saying that he plans to promote miss rice to secretary of state, republicans have preferred this distraction to the core task of negotiations. and now comes the third essential component to a successful negotiation. it is to isolate and contain the hostage taker, and this is exactly what the president has done. speaker boehner has not offered anything more than what mitt romney tried to sell throughout the election campaign, and the people voted against him. and now the president has speaker boehner cornered and isolated like never before. according to law enforcement , these strategies of containment and negotiation result in a 95% success rate in terms of resolving a hostage crisis without any fatalities. let's hope that speaker boehner can be talked around in the 28 days that we have