The Gary Null Blog

At long last, President Obama seems to have run out of patience with the truculent Republicans who have rejected all of his overtures for a budget deal -- just as Moody's and other economic authorities again warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a debt default.

On Wednesday afternoon, Obama finally stood up at the bargaining table and walked out of the stalemated budget talks, telling House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., that he will "take this to the American people" unless the Republicans showed a real inclination to compromise. Exactly what the president meant by that remark is not yet clear, but some leading Republicans have now realized that pandering to their party's hard-line base could have serious consequences for them as well as for the country.