First off, it’s not a “fiscal cliff.” What we’re slated to hit as of New Year’s Day, as the Wall Street Journal notes, is a tax cliff. Our fiscal cliff, which drops off into a far deeper canyon, is what looms because of our $16,000,000,000,000 debt and the runaway entitlement spending that fuels it — Medicare, Medicaid, (and now) Obamacare. In truth, the debt deal passed in the summer of 2011 — which the press now says we must scrap if we are to avoid the “fiscal cliff” — was designed to postpone our going over the (actual) fiscal cliff.

In poker, if you have a weak hand, you have two choices: fold or bluff. The problem for the Republican House is that this is like a crooked game of 7-card stud — most of the cards were dealt face-up, and a couple of the others are marked. In short, everybody can see that the GOP has a weak hand. Bluffing would be like trying a fake field goal when down 6 points with 3 seconds left in the game. Nobody would buy it. Obama, meanwhile, has a strong hand — as everyone can also see — and he’s not bluffing.