The fiscal cliff draws nearer. The Republicans may be in the worse position because doing nothing puts them in an inferior place politically. But President Nixon’s Madman Theory — make your opponent think you’re crazy enough to put everyone at risk and they’ll back down — might be encouraging the stalemate.

Or maybe we’ve reached a dysfunctional political equilibrium that Matt Miller calls the Endless Cliff Hypothesis? President Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner blame each other for the impasse, but have agreed to talk unplugged.

Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, Washington Post columnist Matt Miller and Thomson Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland consider these matters and more on this week’s “Left, Right & Center.”

— Adapted from KCRW by Alexander Reed Kelly.

KCRW:

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