John Boehner has rejected Obama's latest offer on a fiscal deal.

So the president agrees to continue some of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and to cut Social Security … and John Boehner's response is to push for even more concessions. Shocking, I know. But while Boehner's "Plan B" is pure baloney, it won't matter unless the president continues making the case that Republicans should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage.

Thus, even as he attacks President Obama, Boehner is making it clear he wants to keep the president at the table, where he won't be able to use his bully pulpit to gain leverage over his negotiating rivals (my emphasis):

“He talked about a ‘balanced' approach on the campaign trail,” Boehner intends to say. “What the White House offered yesterday — $1.3 trillion in revenue for only $850 billion in spending cuts — cannot be considered balanced. We're going to keep the door open in hopes the president can find a way to support a balanced approach."

Actually, what Boehner really means is that he's going to keep the door open in the hopes that President Obama won't make the case to the public that Republicans should extend middle-class tax cuts with no strings attached. Because the longer Boehner can keep the president behind closed doors and away from the public, the better a deal he'll ultimately get.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan makes note of the GOP's insanity: "This party is a threat to democratic discourse and to fiscal sanity. Their ideological mania knows no prudential restraint at all."

And finally: "The White House and Democratic leaders immediately rejected Boehner's move, saying the focus of the incremental negotiations should be a comprehensive deficit-reduction agreement."