The only way the GOP can get an upper hand is if Obama invokes the 14th Amendment to prevent the government from defaulting. Defaulting is one event that Obama will NOT allow to happen on his watch.
Invoking the 14th Amendment to prevent default will send the GOP to crazy town, yelping for calls for Obama's impeachment for doing what they failed to do. Nothing short of a constitution crisis will satisfy the GOP crazies. All of the threats to keep the government closed and default are distractions for their true goal. Just saying.
Mon Oct 14, 2013 at 1:27 PM PT: They are saying out loud now:
From the Great Northwest comes this gem from Sarah Palin.
"It’s time for the president to be honest with the American people for a change. Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense," she wrote. "A default would also be a shameful lack of leadership, just as mindlessly increasing our debt without trying to rein in spending is a betrayal of our children and grandchildren who will be stuck with the bill."
From the Great Southwest, comes this from LoGohmert:
Louie Gohmert Will Impeach Obama Right In The Face If He Lets Republicans Destroy America
by Kaili Joy Gray
Louie Gohmert (TX-Village Idiot)Hooray! Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, perpetual leading contender for Dumbest Member of Congress, has a shiny new impeachment bauble. Since that IRSghazigate thing didn’t pan out, and the presidenting while black thing didn’t pan out, and the no-show-us-your-real-real-REAL-birth-certificate-from-the-Hawaiian-Nation-of-Kenya thing didn’t pan out, and the Obama-did-9/11-to-America-with-the-Muslim-Brotherhood thing didn’t pan out, maybe this will work:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) isn’t sure whether he’ll support a debt limit deal, but he is sure of one thing: a debt default would be President Barack Obama’s fault. [...]
When asked whether he would allow the government to default on its debt, Gohmert projected the responsibility for such circumstances onto Obama.
“No,” he said, “that would be an impeachable offense by the president.”
Let’s get all academic with our bad selves for a moment and unpack that GEENYUS plan like a freshman reading Michel Foucault.
Step 1: Republicans bring the government to a screeching halt to punish Obama for not defunding himself, even though they have demanded he do so, like, eleventeen trillion times and they are sick and tired of him refusing to compromise on that, like he is some kind of twice-elected president.
Step 2: Republicans decide that while they’re shutting down the government, they might as well bring the entire American economy to its knees too to by channeling their inner Joe Walsh and going all deadbeat on our bills because that’ll learn ‘em.
Step 3: Republicans offer a compromise in which they will re-open the parts of the government they don’t hate as much as other parts, and they will agree to pay the nation’s bills for another month or so, in exchange for which the president must resign, move back to Kenya, admit he is actually Hitler or maybe Bill Ayers, and also please take all the poors and gays and browns with him, because ugh, those people.
Step 4: The president refuses to negotiate on this totally-not-bugfuck-insane compromise, so Republicans impeach him because if he were a real president, he would not have let Republicans destroy America in the first place.