Jay Newton-Small sees House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) impromptu, tell-all press conference after the abrupt end of debt talks yesterday as a poor indication of the direction of talks going forward.

“I
have never seen negotiations broadcast so openly. It’s not a good sign.
For every major successful bill I’ve covered on the Hill…the
principals always came out of the room and said, ‘We’re making
progress,’ or ‘Nice try, but I’m not going to negotiate with you,’ or
even, ‘I’m not going to negotiate with myself.’ An agreement on raising
the debt ceiling will not come from winning a spin war… I like getting
the story as much as the next reporter… But when talks blow up
there’s a real risk: if negotiators can’t trust each other not to snipe
in the press, how can they trust each other to join arms and enact
something as painful as deficit reduction?”
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire