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 I intended to write about President Obama's prime-time address on the debt ceiling, but House Speaker John Boehner's performance turned out to be the big news. Last seen Friday evening complaining that the president added new last-minute conditions in their debt-ceiling negotiations, Boehner now seems to have no memory of those negotiations, which by both parties' account left them about $400 billion apart. That's not chump change, but against the backdrop of an attempted $4 trillion deal, it didn't have to be a deal-breaker either. 
 
 But if you listened to Boehner Monday night, you'd think he and Obama never discussed a deal. In fact you'd believe the president never wanted any kind of deficit-reduction deal at all. In an impressive display of mendacity, Boehner told the American people the president wants "a blank check" to keep on spending, and the House GOP is serving "the American people" by resisting. Instead of talking about how he and Obama might close the gap they faced only three days ago, Boehner went full-tilt Tea Party crazy and presented his own plan, which requires not only brutal spending cuts but a balanced budget amendment -- as well as another congressional vote to hike the debt ceiling again at the height of the 2012 election season. 
 
 Can there be any doubt that the Republicans' only interest here is making Obama fail? Let's review all the ways they moved the goalposts since the 2010 elections gave them new power. In December Boehner told the New Yorker that raising the debt ceiling would be the new House majority’s "first really big adult moment," adding, "We’ll have to find a way to help educate members and help people understand the serious problem that would exist if we didn’t do it." For his part Obama said he expected a clean up or down vote, just like President Reagan got 18 times and George W. Bush got another seven times. But after Boehner negotiated his program-cuts-for-continuing-government deal, in April he began to make threats. "The president says I want you to send me a clean bill. Well guess what, Mr. President: Not a chance you’re going to get a clean bill," he told a GOP fundraiser. "There will not be an increase in the debt limit without something really, really big attached to it." 
 
 Obama decided to negotiate, but he demanded a dollar of tax or revenue hikes for every dollar of spending cuts. Republicans not only rejected revenue hikes, they demanded a dollar of spending cuts for every dollar the debt ceiling was raised. Obama began seeking a "grand bargain," in which he'd discuss Social Security and Medicare cuts (even though Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit) in exchange for at least revenue hikes. The earliest leaks about such a deal, believe them or not, all contained spending cuts three to five times bigger than revenue hikes. Then what happened? Boehner walked away from negotiations to close those deals -- which would have infuriated many progressives, by the way, including me. And a few weeks ago, as the president got ever more conciliating, Republicans got more stubborn, now demanding a balanced budget amendment in whatever deal is reached. 
 
 I honestly don't think anyone has come out and said how extraordinarily apocalyptic and insane it is to tie that controversial old GOP issue to the debt ceiling hike, given the disaster for the American economy if we default. The balanced budget amendment lost favor under the deficit-building Ronald Reagan, when many Republicans decided deficits weren't really an issue -- unless a Democrat held the White House. Tonight Boehner was on prime-time national television telling Americans that's what it will take to increase the debt ceiling. Now, Boehner knows a balanced budget amendment bill can't pass. Hell, he probably doesn't even want it. But this is the way the GOP ups the ante every time the president gets close to a deal. 
 
 And what did the president do? He tried to explain how we got into this mess, and he prepared us for a gut-wrenching, economy-wounding compromise. I liked a lot of Obama's speech tonight, but he made a couple of points that typify the way he ultimately negotiates against himself. He opened with that sad and useless comparison between the federal budget and household budgets. Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, among others, have explained why it's wrong until they're blue in the face -- unlike each of our little families, the federal government correctly goes into deficit spending to spur recovery from recession; in fact, the government does it because our families can't or shouldn't. Obama still found the folksy comparison irresistible. "Every family knows a little credit card debt is manageable," the president said, while arguing that anything more than "a little" hurts the economy. 
 
 His rhetorical climax also left me a little cold. Talking about Americans' many frustrations with the status quo, Obama concluded: "But do you know what people are fed up with most of all? They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word." Does he really think that? Obama continued: 
 
 They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They are offended by that. And they should be. 
 
 You know, I'm sure that's true for some people who are "scraping by." But I think it's mainly true for the Beltway elites the president hears from way too much. That's the complaint of David Brooks and Tom Friedman, and the hedge-funders backing the frivolous "third party" time-waster, Americans Elect. It's not what the unemployed and the struggling and people afraid they'll lose Social Security or Medicare benefits are "fed up with most of all." Obama can't really think that, can he? 
 
 In this political environment, anything is possible. Prepare to hear that Harry Reid's deal to cut $2.7 trillion from the budget, with absolutely no revenue increases, is a victory for Democrats. It won't be. I hope I'm wrong, but the president is dealing with a conscience-free opposition willing to risk economic tragedy to defeat him. I'd love to see all of his maneuvering result in a clean up or down vote on a debt increase (which some of his most avid supporters insist is his goal). I don't see it from here. Again, I would be thrilled to be wrong. ||||| President Barack Obama elbowed his way back into the debt ceiling debate Monday night, three days after Republicans shoved him out, but he offered no hint of a solution to the escalating political and financial crisis. 
 
 If regular citizens — or markets here and overseas — were looking for reassurance in Obama’s 15-minute speech or House Speaker John Boehner’s five-minute rebuttal, they were out of luck. Instead, the men who hold the fiscal destiny of nearly 312 million people in their hands treated viewers to the unsettling spectacle of two leaders talking past, not to, each other. 
 
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 With neither Obama nor House Republicans yet willing to make the final compromise necessary to seal a deal, the leader of the free world made a stunning appeal for regular citizens to call or email their representatives to end what he called the “most dangerous game.” 
 
 “This is no way to run the greatest country on Earth. … We can’t allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington’s political warfare,” Obama added. “If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know.” 
 
 The tactic seemed to have the desired effect, temporarily overwhelming the website of Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders. 
 
 Obama did call for unity, quoting Ronald Reagan and citing former presidents from both parties who support a “balanced approach” of spending cuts, revenue increases and entitlement reforms. But he also bashed Republicans, arguing that their tactics “risk sparking a deep economic crisis — one caused almost entirely by Washington” and categorically rejected Boehner’s new plan for a short-term debt ceiling hike. 
 
 “Defaulting on our obligations is a reckless and irresponsible outcome to this debate,” Obama said. “And Republican leaders say that they agree we must avoid default. But the new approach that Speaker Boehner unveiled today, which would temporarily extend the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts, would force us to once again face the threat of default just six months from now. In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem.” 
 
 Beyond the I’m-still-here theme of the speech, Obama sought to strike the larger themes of his 2012 campaign, aimed at independent voters who have only now begun tuning into the debt debate: the need for compromise, his disgust with partisan Washington and his determination to make the rich pay their fair share. If his campaign-style rhetoric was persuasive, it came at an awkward time, during the final days when a reasonable debt ceiling compromise can still be struck. ||||| For the better part of 2011, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have been talking hypothetically — each from his own ideological perspective — about the potential fallout of their inability to reach a debt ceiling, deficit-cutting plan. 
 
 The implications of their inability to get some deal done are about to become terrifyingly concrete — in the form of Monday’s skittish market opening and a potentially costly credit downgrade that will hike the price of everything from government borrowing to home mortgages. But that hasn’t stopped the spinning and posturing as each side seeks the most advantageous deal possible while selling the American public on the argument that it’s the other guy who is pushing the country over the abyss. 
 
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 With that in mind, here’s a guide to the reality behind the spin in the debt ceiling battle: 
 
 Myth: Obama wins politically, no matter what happens. 
 
 Reality: That may have been true a week ago, but it’s less of a sure thing now. 
 
 The rating agencies, Obama’s punching bag for missing the signs of the housing collapse, are proving to be hyper-vigilant when it comes to the politics of the debt ceiling; S&P says the chances of a downgrade are 50-50, even if the parties raise the ceiling and cut some spending. 
 
 Administration officials, echoing the carping of Euro zone pols, are mounting a PR pushback but Obama faces the prospects of a AA future, which would be devastating fiscally and well-nigh disastrous politically. 
 
 Can anyone envision a more devastating line than “Barack Obama, the man who lost America’s AAA credit rating — and brought you 9 percent unemployment”? 
 
 Even Republicans concede that Obama has looked pretty good so far, and done a masterly job positioning himself as the most responsible adult in the room and a fiscal hawk, despite years of Keynesian commitment to stimulus spending. 
 
 Yet the notion that the embattled speaker is the only one who’s lost control isn’t true. Instead of projecting the image of a clutch fourth-quarter performer who always wins, Obama now looks like a jilted prom date waiting, in ruffled tux, for a date that never arrives — or a phone call that’s never returned. 
 
 “I think that one of the questions that the Republican Party is going to have to ask itself is, Can they say yes to anything?” an exasperated Obama asked reporters on Friday night after the “grand bargain” heaved its last breath. “And so then the question becomes, where’s the leadership?” 
 
 Others might ask him the same question. By kicking the ball back to Capitol Hill and essentially demanding that Boehner come back to him with a bill, a president who prides himself on control and responsibility has essentially handed both to Republicans he’s already branded as “irresponsible.” 
 
 Myth: The talks collapsed over Obama’s demand for $400 billion more in revenue over 10 years. 
 
 Reality: Boehner didn’t have the votes. 
 
 The Obama-Boehner bargain would have been a $3 trillion to $3.5 trillion deal that made a serious stab at the national debt for the first time in 15 years, kick-started entitlement reform and broached the issue of tax equality. And it collapsed over a measly $40 billion in revenue a year? Ten percent of the total? 
 
 The truth is there was no guarantee that Boehner had the votes even before Obama called for the additional tax revenue — and the $800 billion he reportedly okayed was simply the high-end Bush-era tax cuts the White House had promised to kill months ago. ||||| Fiery Exchange At Obama Town Hall 
 
 By Ed Henry 
 
 Fox Chief White House Correspondent 
 
 DECORAH, Iowa – President Obama got into a heated back and forth with a Tea Party activist who demanded to know at the end of a town hall meeting here whether or not Vice President Biden had called members of the Tea Party “terrorists” during the debt ceiling debate. 
 
 In public, Obama did not directly answer the question from Tea Party activist Ryan Rhodes about Biden. But Obama fired back that he knows better than anyone what it’s like to be slammed for his political views and was not about to accept a lecture on the topic. 
 
 “As someone who’s been called a socialist, not born here, taking away freedoms for providing health care, I’m all for lowering the rhetoric,” Obama said. 
 
 Obama did say he would discuss the matter further with Rhodes, founder of the Iowa Tea Party, after the event. And the duo was spotted in an animated conversation a few moments later. 
 
 In an interview later with Fox News, Rhodes claimed that the President insisted that Biden had not made the original comment. 
 
 “He just denied it, he said the Vice President didn’t make any of those assertions,” said Rhodes. “He doesn’t want to even admit what was on TV nationally — all over the place — then how can you have a conversation?” 
 
 Rhodes added that Obama brushed him aside. “Then he said ‘we can’t have a conversation because you’re saying I called you a terrorist,’” recalled Rhodes. “The fact is it demonstrates the deep divide that he is unwilling to negotiate without going after the other side, the whole day was about going after republicans and talking about how unreasonable they are.” 
 
 The private conversation between Rhodes and Obama was partially picked up by a TV camera but the audio was a little tough to make out. But Obama in general did seem to be saying the incident with Biden was misconstrued and that if Rhodes wanted to insist that the word “terrorist” was used then they were never going to see eye to eye. 
 
 The incident stems from a private meeting Biden attended at the height of the debt ceiling debate with House Democrats who were angry that Republicans were not meeting the President halfway. One lawmakers, Rep. Mike Doyle D-Pa.), went so far as to say that Republicans affiliated with the Tea Party had behaved like “terrorists” during the debate. 
 
 Some Democrats familiar with the meeting said at the time that Biden had appeared to agree with the sentiment expressed by Doyle and others as a way of moving the conversation along and convincing Democrats to support the final compromise. But Biden himself denied to CBS News that he had uttered the word “terrorist” in the meeting in the context of the Tea Party. 
 
 Here in Iowa, some people in the Iowa crowd here seemed to be unhappy with Rhodes. One woman was overheard confronting him by saying, “That was extraordinarily rude” to the President. 
 
 A second woman who did not want to be identified by name said she felt the exchange was “over the top aggressive.” 
 
 But Rhodes was not backing down. “I said my piece,” he said.
– President Obama and John Boehner gave dueling speeches last night, and the news was not good. Here's what the pundits are taking away from it all: If people—or markets—were looking for reassurance, “they were out of luck,” observes Politico. Instead, Obama and Boehner “treated viewers to the unsettling spectacle of two leaders talking past, not to, each other,” with Obama even issuing a “stunning” plea for people to call their representatives. Obama’s speech proved this isn’t a left vs. right debate. “It’s center vs. right,” argues EJ Dionne of the Washington Post. “There was nothing remotely ‘left’ in this speech.” With some deft rhetorical touches—like quoting Ronald Reagan— “my hunch is that Obama’s speech spoke more to middle-of-the-road Americans.” But William Kristol of the Weekly Standard thought Obama came across as condescending—especially when he said most Americans had probably never heard of the debt ceiling. “It would be nice to have a president who spoke candidly to his fellow citizens as adults,” he writes. Boehner, meanwhile, went “full-tilt Tea Party crazy,” writes Joan Walsh of Salon. He acted as though he and Obama had never discussed a deal at all, while demanding a balanced budget amendment—which is “extraordinarily apocalyptic and insane,” because Boehner knows that can’t pass. “Hell, he probably doesn’t even want it.” He’s just moving the goal posts on Obama again.