The Secret to Ending Washington’s Standoff

House Speaker John Boehner’s suggestion that he’s determined to avoid a federal debt default, and that he’ll pass a measure to that effect with Democratic votes, if necessary, gives both sides in the great Washington standoff a possible way out. To make it work, each will have to give a little as well as take a little. It won’t be elegant, but the prospect of lifting the threat of a ruinous default -- preferably, once and for all -- makes that a secondary consideration.

Boehner and the Tea Party Republicans who have been calling the shots up to now have all but given up trying to end or even delay the Affordable Care Act. Reports of children being turned away from federal cancer-treatment programs are aligning the public against them. Polls say that Republicans are getting more of the blame than Democrats, and hopes for big Republican wins in 2014 are diminishing. The beginnings of a backlash could turn into something vicious if the calamity of a default should come to pass in two weeks and Boehner can’t plausibly blame President Barack Obama.