I think Marshall is reading this wrong, whereas his former employee Brian Beutler called this awhile ago
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/24/ted_cruzs_complaints_are_meaningless/The NY Times reported mere days ago that Boehner recently told House republicans he will not allow a default to occur. This collaborates the report from early September that he told K/Wall Street folks that a default won't happen.
Boehner is weak, there's no doubt about it. He also has a long history of allowing his hardliners to lead him into bad situations, forcing him to crawl to Nancy Pelosi for help. Remember when republicans rejected the first bailout, during Bush's final weeks in office, and the market dropped 800 points? He has always struggled with hardliners, even before the tea party existed. Then last December, remember when he took a far right position on the "fiscal cliff" to appease the tea party, mere days after Obama's reelection, which culminated in the "Plan B" fiasco that almost cost him his Speakership? the result of that was Boehner relying on democrat votes to effectively push through a tax increase.
I think Boehner thought the threat of default and a government shutdown would convince 2011 Obama to appear, thus giving republicans an easy win. He clearly didn't expect Obama to hold firm, or senate democrats to remain united. Now he's fucked in a protracted battle he can't win. Robert Costa (National Review) has reported that House leadership may be marching towards a two pronged cave: by mixing the shutdown with the debt ceiling, it's likely the GOP will fold on both at the same time. This will be a humiliation for Boehner, but he'll get to say he waited until the last minute/fought the good fight/etc.
edit: remember, we're witnessing history here. If Obama folds, he sets quite an ugly precedent on presidential blackmail. If he holds firm and Boehner fades into obscurity on the hill, he will have defended executive power.
