Krugman doesn't understand what the president is doing, either:
Instead, he apparently intended the pay freeze announcement as a peace gesture to Republicans the day before a bipartisan summit. At that meeting, Mr. Obama, who has faced two years of complete scorched-earth opposition, declared that he had failed to reach out sufficiently to his implacable enemies. He did not, as far as anyone knows, wear a sign on his back saying “Kick me,” although he might as well have.
There were no comparable gestures from the other side. [...]
The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?
At this point, days later, there's still no clue from the White House what all of this embarrassing capitulation is about. They simply appear to be standing firm on their, you know, lack of standing firm.
(Meanwhile, it looks like John Cole isn't happy either. I second everything he wrote here.)