A little buzz we're picking up from Capitol Hill...

Tim Geithner has already made one pretty big debt ceiling negotiations blunder, and that is changing the drop-dead date. Remember, it was originally in early May, then that was breached and Geithner quietly turned on the emergency measures and reset the "drop dead" date to August 2 (after which, supposedly, there is no "plan b").

Well, the effect has been to convince the GOP that no drop-dead dates exist, and that there's always another emergency measure at the end of the tunnel.

We kind of thing that's right, and that Geithner does have more tools, but it's made the summer negotiations that much harder for the Democrats.