Russian Roulette Debt Ceiling : White House Press Secretary Jay Carney came to Tuesday’s briefing armed with a 1983 Ronald Reagan letter to Congress warning that "the full consequences of a default are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate"

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"Reagan, of course, was right. But even as Carney quoted Reagan, it was telling that the White House press secretary was not armed with a more contemporary line from a president named Barack Obama".

"White House logic is that at the last minute enough Republicans will yield to pressure from the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to find a formula to prevent the government from defaulting"

"Finding 80-90 House Republicans willing to take on both the fury of the Tea Party movement and the doubts of independent voters is a daunting task"

The New Republic
Glass Ceiling
Why Obama can’t assume Republicans will ever make a deal on the debt ceiling.
By Walter Shapiro
June 1, 2011

Walter Shapiro is a special correspondent for The New Republic.

Why Obama can’t assume Republicans will ever make a deal on the debt ceiling.

Some excerpts :

But far more serious than the mountebank munching at Famous Famiglia in Times Square was the lopsided 318-97 House vote rejecting raising the federal debt limit to $16.7 trillion to avoid an early August default.

It is tempting to dismiss the House vote as a premature burst of towel snapping before the real negotiations begin with the countdown clock ticking in late July. Speaker John Boehner delivered a unanimous GOP vote against raising the debt ceiling to demonstrate resolve on the eve of Barack Obama’s meeting with House Republicans. The National Republican Congressional Committee—the political arm of the House Republicans—gleefully sent out more than 50 virtually identical press releases in advance, denouncing Democratic incumbents for "frantically requesting another blank check for more spending by supporting a higher borrowing limit without any spending cuts".

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Looking at the arithmetic of Tuesday night’s debt-ceiling vote (97 Democrats voting aye, 7 voting “present” to protest GOP gamesmanship, and party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer voting “no,” although they will undoubtedly support Obama on a final vote), it is hard to see how the legislation can ultimately pass the House without 80-90 GOP votes. Unless you believe that there will be a grand deficit bargain by the end of July (and elves are dancing in the glen), finding 80-90 Republicans willing to take on both the fury of the Tea Party movement and the doubts of independent voters is a daunting task.

That is why Obama’s silence on the debt-ceiling version of Russian Roulette is so troubling. Of course, the president is not going to convince the Glenn Beck brigades and Rush Limbaugh legions to support extending the government’s borrowing authority. But the bully pulpit does count for something with the independents who misguidedly believe that raising the debt ceiling is somehow more dangerous than the government refusing to pay its obligations. Two months is long enough for Obama to explain to the voters in the middle what the stakes are in what could prove to be the biggest political showdown between now and the 2012 election.

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