"Andrew Breitbart Puts a $100,000.00 Bounty On Ezra Klein"
If it seems odd that Democrats are spending the week before a possible government shutdown trying to talk Republicans out of potentially breaching the debt ceiling sometime in October or November, it's worth keeping three things in mind:
1) Democrats don't fear a shutdown. They do fear a debt-ceiling breach. Politically, Democrats think Republican brinksmanship is all gravy for them, and many believe some kind of massive Republican misstep would actually be healthy for the political system, as it might lead to a public rejection of the GOP's more extreme tactics. But in terms of actual impact on actual human beings, Democrats aren't particularly concerned about the consequences of a shutdown, while they're horrified by the potential consequences of even a short-lived default.
2) Democrats are worried Boehner is backing himself into a corner. A common criticism of Boehner among both Hill and White House Democrats (not to mention some Republicans) is that he's a short-term strategist who buys time and consensus by making promises to his members that he can't deliver on -- and that end up making future crises worse. This is what they see him doing on the debt ceiling, where he's trying to get his members to keep the government open by promising them an even bigger fight over the debt ceiling.
3) Democrats are trying to convince Boehner that they're serious by backing themselves into a corner. Democrats believe Boehner is going to come to them in a few weeks and say that as much as he agrees the debt ceiling simply has to be raised there's no way he can raise it without concessions given the promises he's made in public and to his members. Democrats are trying to preempt this strategy by making a series of very public statements that they won't negotiate, such that they can reply that their credibility would be endangered by any kind of a deal, and negotiations are simply politically impossible for them.
That leaves us in a situation where Boehner can't raise the debt ceiling without concessions and Democrats can't give Boehner anything in return for raising the debt ceiling.
So how does the country gets out of this mess? The most honest answer is no one really knows, at least not yet. Far and away the scariest facet of reporting on the debt ceiling is that even the participants in the process who are extremely confident that Congress will find a way out don't have any plausible explanation for what that way out might be.
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