What John Boehner Is Saying In Private May Be More Ominous Than The Public Comments

The National Review's Robert Costa is the best report on the GOP and the fiscal standoff.

His latest piece has one ominous paragraph about what John Boehner is saying in private:

In private, Boehner has told his allies that he won't bring up a clean CR, and he's hopeful that as the deadline nears, President Obama will deal. "There's no way the president holds firm," a House GOP insider predicts. "Once that crack opens, I don't know how the debt limit will be addressed, but it won't be by Republican capitulation."

It'd be nice to read that in private, there was some more conciliatory language, but at the moment, all of the private rhetoric is about hardening people's positions and convincing the team that the other side will cave.