I’m more than a little bit stunned to see the Speaker of the House say that the President welshed on a deal and that dealing with him is like dealing with Jell-O. Yet from the accounts we have those comments seem justified. Barack Obama agreed to $800 billion in additional revenues, from eliminating tax preferences and perhaps cutting tax rates, as a ceiling, and then insisted on $400 billion more, in tax rate increases. No wonder John Boehner cut the negotiations off. The House Republicans have been called instranigent for rejecting tax increases and for passing the so-called Cut, Cap and Balance bill which, as the thoughtful Charles Lane pointed out on Fox News, will never be signed by the president. But why then isn’t the president being called intransigent for insisting on tax rates increases that will never be voted by the House? And for calling for those tax increases after saying that he wouldn’t?