It's tough to tell what exactly is going on with the negotiations to raise the debt limit, since the three leading Republicans involved in the negotiations, Speaker John Boehner, Rep. Eric Cantor, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, all seem to be pushing different versions of the deal, and the president is talking in legume and bandage metaphors. On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart reduced the key players to familiar character types: President Obama is America's put-upon "dad" who "begins every press conference with a heavy sigh" and "comes home early from work to [give] us a talking-to about not cleaning up our budget." 

He goes on to compare Republican negotiators to a band of cheap, rowdy teens for trying to score points on an issue like the debt limit, which has been raised ten times in ten years. "It's not 'All right, let's all chip in and we'll buy a keg for the party,'" Stewart explains, "but 'Buy me a keg and I won't burn your [expletive] house down'."

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Ray Gustini