will, and syndicated columnest charles. gentlemen, george, what do you think today? well, about the polls, i question how many americans are really thinking about this until the pollster says are you thinking about this and then they dutyfully say they re concerned and alarmed, et cetera. i also question how long this will have an effect after this as a receding memory. all that said, clearly the republicans are not enjoying this. but i m not sure the president is either. this week we began to get some adult supervision from someone nine years younger than the president, paul ryan, who said outlines of the deal are so obvious. we have something you very much want and that is a sequester you d like to weaken. and you have something we want, which is the ability to cooperate on reigning in the entitlement state. let s deal. the nonsense from the white house about not negotiating, they re in the process of negotiating whether it s pre-negotiating negotiating, but they re negotiating.