I read Armando's diary from yesterday (in which he urged Obama to lay the groundwork for invoking the 14th Amendment in case of imminent default) with great interest, but I wonder if he isn't misinterpreting the situation. To me it looks like the radical right's shutdown/debt ceiling endgame strategy may finally be coming into focus.
To borrow a phrase from H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the tea partiers. So it's possible they're just being idiots. But I think in this case it's also possible that the recent actions of Boehner and the House tea party caucus are a political calculation. Specifically, I think they may now be planning to hold firm and take the nation up to the brink of default, all the while counting on Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment at the last minute to prevent a default from actually occurring.
Consider the political benefits of this plan from a tea party perspective. By refusing to back down, they will be able to maintain their image among their base as heroic and uncomprimising. The nation will not actually default, because Obama (they assume, and probably rightly) will protect the Full Faith and Credit clause at the expense of the debt ceiling by assuming emergency powers to borrow money to pay the nation's bills. The Republicans then get to wring their hands and claim that Obama is finally being revealed as a fascist whose ultimate goal is to assume all the powers of government for himself. Expect lots of comparisons to Chancellor Hitler and the Enabling Act. Also expect lots of calls for Obama's impeachment. (Hell, who knows, they may actually go ahead and impeach him, though if they did the Senate would obviously never vote to convict and would likely just roll their eyes.)
I believe that they've only settled on this strategy in the past few days. If you recall, as recently as last Friday Boehner was privately saying he would not allow a default to occur. That seemed to change just a couple days ago, with Boehner becoming increasingly belligerent about the prospect of default. (Officially, he's still refusing to say what he'd do if default was imminent and no deal was in sight, but comments about how a clean debt ceiling increase would constitute "unconditonal surrender" do not sound very promising.) I think he may have spied a way to save his job and is pursuing it.
It was right around that same time that we suddenly started hearing comments from House tea party caucus members downplaying the consequences of a default. This is the critical piece of the puzzle, because if Republicans are to argue that Obama's invocation of the 14th Amendment constitutes an unconscionable power grab, they must also argue that it was unnecessary. And as long as the catastrophic consequences of default remain unquestioned, they cannot make that argument. I believe it is this thinking--in combination with the usual Republican disdain for expertise and inconvenient facts--that is behind the sudden Pollyanna routine on the prospect of default.
Of course it could all just be brinksmanship and bluster intended to get the Democrats to cave. We should all hope, very fervently, that that is the case. Or it may be I'm right that this is a deliberate strategy, but enough non-tea-party Republicans will balk at the plan to scuttle it. If not, though, we're all in for a lot of ugliness and scariness and pain over the next several weeks. I think the chances of the Republicans actually improving their fortunes with such a plan are practically nil--it would certainly backfire in the court of public opinion, and the inevitable Supreme Court challenge to Obama's invocation of the 14th Amendment would almost certainly be resolved in his favor--but I think they may be crazy/stupid/shortsighted enough to believe it's a viable path forward. At this point I think the Republicans in the House would do just about anything to avoid the humiliation of caving to Obama.
Note that if my reading of the situation is correct, it may be a mistake for Obama to lay the groundwork for the 14th Amendment option at this point, as this would only validate their strategy and ensure it would be carried out. On the other hand, perhaps Armando is right after all, and the smartest thing to do is ignore whatever ridiculous shenanigans the Republicans have planned and worry about calming the markets and the world community. Or I could be wrong about all of it, and Boehner has no plans to take us down that road. Man, I would really like someone to tell me that's the case.