Boehner’s show-and-bluff strategy on the debt ceiling

By Ezra Klein
WashPost

Steve Benen rounds up some of John Boehner’s debt-ceiling statements and notices that they’re getting more, rather than less, reckless. We’ve gone from, “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part,” to “there's a chance it [the debt limit vote] could not happen.”

Perhaps that’s to be expected: Boehner’s playing a bit of a double-game here. He needs to convince Republicans that the debt-ceiling must be raised, convince the market that he understands the debt ceiling must be raised, and convince the Obama administration that he won’t raise the debt ceiling unless he gets whatever he decides he wants.

Alan Greenspan got at the peculiarity of this strategy quite well. “You cannot have a position which stipulates that I will never allow the United States to default. But on the other hand, I will not allow the process to go forward unless there are additional actions with respect to the debt,” he said on Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press. Boehner’s attempting the rarely-executed show-and-bluff strategy, in which you first show your cards and then you try and bluff your way to the pot.

(More here.)