Had a day off and read a lot of things. Mostly about the American State of 'Union'. Two things stayed on my mind: 'Linz' and the '14th'. Why those? Because they interact, they are a consequence of each other and both show a crucial weakness of the American political system.
First, start off with 'Linz'. I mean Juan Linz, an eminent thinker (R.I.P.), who saw the perils of a Presidential System. The article by Jonathan Chait ("The Shutdown Prophet") in New York Magazine shows us how Linz would envision current political problems, as a consequence of fundamental flaws baked into its operating system. It shows how it still needs to mature, clean out the bugs, upgrade from time to time as the hardware (or better yet wetware) changes. And, like some realtime OS, it shows the need for some big-time revision of its future.
The other thought was about a way out of this current (and impending) doom. How can or should a President act as a defender of the constitution? In that constitution there's an Article 14, Clause 4, which says:
"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
This Clause was specifically inserted as law to prevent 'factions' from hijacking government. Back then they knew their system wasn't perfect, so they built in some Reset-buttons. And they are really a 'Reset'. It's a cold reboot, all data gone, you're just hoping for the best and expecting the worst.
According to the US Constitution the President is bound by that Constitution to upheld that Constitution, so help him Whoever. That means he has to use the 14th, whatever chaos ensues. Chaos will happen anyway wether he goes left or right, but he has sworn to uphold the Constitution. So, it's a real Jack Ryan-moment for Obama.
If Obama hits 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' on this, the world is gonna change. It also shows that Linz was right...