Reply #76: Wow, thanks for all the specific detail. Totally get your point about [View All]

the lawyers serving at the pleasure of the currrent president. However, my understanding is that they 'represent' the interests of the office of the presidency and not the personal interests of the specific president in office. You may think I'm being pedantic in making that distinction, but the executive branch has legal constitutional interests just as the legislative and judiciary do and it is those interests, and not the interests of 'President X' or 'President Y,' that these WH attorneys represent.

You seem to be implying that Obama can go 'opinion fishing' and that, if Obama only wanted to use the 14th, why then he could find attorneys who would support that option also. Let's consider what might happen were Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment in contravention to Article 1, Section 8 and, by executive fiat, authorize issuance of new debt. Would potential creditors, i.e., purchasers of debt instruments, trust that this new debt, subject as you would have it eventual judicial review, was backed by the 'full faith and credit' of the United States? Or would potential creditors be justified in bidding down the prices offered for such debt, given that its bona fides were open to question? Result: higher interest rates and consequent economic slowdown, stagnation and eventual death spiral.

I suspect it is that very logic that has led Obama and the WH attorneys away from a 14th-Amendment solution to the crisis.