Boehner on his own

Boehner issued his ransom demand for raising the debt ceiling in a speech to some Wall Street bigwigs. Two trillion in unspecified spending cuts and no tax raises on wealthy campaign donors. However, Medicare "reform" or as I like to call it, killing Medicare as we know it, is on the table. Hell, it's the main course.

Shorter Wall Street response was: "Meh. He's just posturing." Which was pretty much mine as well. This is clearly the same game he played with the government shutdown. Talk tough until the last possible moment to please the clueless base and then make a deal that won't piss them off so much that they'll remember it for very long.

But this time the Senate Dems won't be giving Boehner any cover. They're going to let the Dems pass the bill on their side so they can accuse them of being spendthrifts. Which I know assumes Dems have the balls to pass it alone without caving into the cuts. And the savvy to understand passing it that way would give them them the "we saved Medicare" card.

But if the Senate Dems were smart enough to call the GOPers' bluff in their chamber, Boehner is suddenly left to play a hand full of wild Tea Party Jokers while the Dems hold the aces. And in this round of the game, the Jokers are not trump cards.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]