The lead news article in today's Times begins:
WASHINGTON — President Obama and House Republicans failed to reach agreement on a six-week extension of the nation's borrowing authority during a meeting Thursday at the White House, but the two sides kept talking, and the offer from politically besieged Republicans was seen as an initial step toward ending the budget standoff. ...Even before the meeting, the White House and its Democratic allies in Congress were all but declaring victory at the evidence that Republicans — suffering the most in polls, and pressured by business allies and donors not to provoke a government default — were seeking a way out of the impasse.
In this telling of the story, it's the Republicans, not Mr. Obama, who are politically besieged. You wouldn't know it from the Times article, but President Obama is also suffering in the polls — his approval rating was down to 37 percent in a recent AP poll, a level so low that when George W. Bush reached it, it was considered big news. The Times makes it sound like the Republicans are caving in, but Mr. Obama's position had been that he would not negotiate over the lifting of the debt ceiling, and it sure looks like now he is negotiating. So it's not at all clear that the outcome emerging here is the one-sided Democratic victory depicted by the Times.