What if Barack Obama planned all this?

Wouldn't that be something?

What if Barack Obama has played the country like a drum?

For a certainty nobody thinks Obama won as much as he could have during the recent stumble over the fiscal molehill. Hell, he didn't even seem to be asking for enough to begin with. Doesn't the guy know how to negotiate?

But what if Barack deliberately decided not to ask for as much as he could have, deliberately decided that he wasn't going to try to win all that was possible to win? What if that was a purposeful strategy?

To be sure, there's hardly anyone outside of the Republican caucus willing to say that Obama asked for too much and forced the caucus to give more than they should have given. Nope, people don't think that Obama asked for too much and they don't think he bludgeoned the Republicans. They think he governed.

If that's true, imagine the possibilities.

And it might be true. I mean, look at how much ground Obama has recaptured since the 2010 election:

No one is asking to see his birth certificate anymore. And if they are, the media is not reporting it--well, Fox, maybe, but I mean the other media. And the Obama's-a-Muslim thing, is gone, too.

More important, the Tea Party is contracting. That passion looks spent. And Democrats actually gained seats in the House this election. And the Republican caucus in the House is in disarray.

This may be a man, this president, who always had his mind set on the long game. Maybe he saw a branch of the future that looks like a path to a president who doesn't lose on the debt ceiling.

Just saying.