Three professors of false equivalence look at the Obama-Boehner faceoff

The Times' James B. Stewart today interviews three management gurus who think that "getting to yes" in a deficit reduction deal ought to be easy. These men presumably know a good deal about corporate negotiations. But their apparent ignorance of politics -- political dynamics generally, and the battles of the last two years in particular -- is breathtaking.

The three cited experts, William Ury of Harvard, Seth Freeman of Columbia's Stern School, and Daylian Cain of Yale,  collectively assert the following: both sides are taking and have taken maximalist, uncompromising positions; neither allows the other any face-saving outs; and they are not that far apart substantively. Prof. Cain suggests that spending time together socially could make a substantive difference.   All of these assumptions are wrong.