For me, on substance, the Obama-Boehner speech was almost a non-event. I heard no new facts, no new arguments, no brilliant turns of phrase that seemed likely convince any members of either party to change their thinking (or their non-thinking). Obama is a far better speechifier but I thought he was at the lower end of his oratorical range, while Boehner delivered his utterly predictable cant about as smoothly as I’ve ever seen him. They both kept it short.

The polls have long shown that if the public is asked whether they want “a balanced approach” to deficit/debt reduction, or want to go “cuts-only,” a durable majority prefers the former. Obama relied heavily on that polling and on those two exact phrases. One of the weakest parts of Obama’s current stand is that he while continues to endorse “balance,” which is of course code for a deal that includes some additional (don’t make me say “tax increases”) revenues, he had just hours earlier endorsed Harry Reid’s cuts only proposal. Presumably, Obama would say that since the Repubs won’t budge, we need a cuts-only stopgap measure and keep arguing for the bigger, more “balanced” plan.

The very, very scariest thing about the two speeches is that they seemed to offer even less hope for compromise. My mind isn’t nimble enough to grasp how Obama thought that expressing a weird, insulting backhanded sympathy for Boehner’s problem – being stuck with a bunch of crazy Tea Partiers in his caucus who won’t let him compromise – will make it easier for him to compromise. But I hope it works.

I’m a big lifelong fan of The Atlantic magazine. Fearing that my own reaction to the speech was lame, I read through the instant reactions of the Atlantic’s cadre of brilliant bloggers. Here are a few excerpts:

James Fallows: “Boehner has seemed like a reasonable, public-spirited guy, put in an awkward situation by the lean-and-hungry Eric Cantor and his troops. This cannot be a performance he'll be proud of. Let's hope we look back on this as a low point before the ‘of course they eventually had to make a deal’ resolution. And not as the evening when we realized that we actually had joined the Third World.

PS: Oh, yes, about the President's speech. I thought he made a perfectly fine, reasonable case for a balanced approach and the need for compromise. But I've thought from the start that some compromise solution was the only one. (For instance.) We'll see whether tonight's performance changes anyone's mind. My hopes are lower than they were an hour ago."

Derek Thompson: "President Obama and House Speaker Boehner's dueling debt ceiling speeches did not make news. The plane is going down, and both pilots told their side of the fuselage that the other guy is responsible. (Both sides knew that already, didn't they?)

The instant analysis after the addresses went like this: MSNBC said Boehner was political, and Fox News said Obama was political. They're both right. The debt ceiling is a political instrument, after all. The president wants a long-term deal because he thinks another debt ceiling showdown will hurt him in 2012. Republicans want to schedule another debt ceiling showdown in 2012 for the exact same reason. Don't ask who's being more political.

Instead, ask whose political interest is best for the economy. My answer: A long-term debt ceiling deal that backloads spending cuts reduces the possibility of default before 2013 and allows Washington to spend its time on something, anything, that might increase job creation."

Joshua Green: "I suspect the average person watching at home, if they'd been wired to one of those Frank Luntz dials, would have liked what the president had to say. But I also think that the House Republicans he'll presumably need to support a plan are going to be less likely, rather than more likely, to compromise after hearing him speak. Perhaps they'll be persuaded if Obama succeeds in rousing ordinary people to pick up their phone, call their representative and demand compromise. But I seriously doubt it. I think he's probably helped Boehner keep his caucus together, and in that sense, despite turning in the better performance, he's left himself worse off after tonight. At least from my vantage point, a deal seems no closer at hand."

Megan McArdle: So why this urgent press conference? Coupled with Boehner's rebuttal, the most plausible explanation to my mind is also the most troubling: both sides have given up making a deal, and are now just working on fixing the blame.  Boehner's performance was uncharacteristically forceful, and even displayed a few flashes of personality, which was a nice change from his usual studied blandness.  But personal entertainment aside, this is not the moment when I really wanted to see John Boehner spontaneously generate a backbone.  He wasn't trying to explain his position to a curious public; he was trying to justify the unjustifiable decision to risk the US credit rating rather than agree to a deal that Democrats could also live with.

Obama, meanwhile, seemed to be going out of his way to isolate Boehner from his more militant caucus members--praising Boehner's willingness to cut a deal, if only it weren't for the crazies on the far right.  Perhaps this makes Obama look like a nice guy to people who do't understand the GOP intra-party dynamics, but of course, it poisons an already poisonous relationship between Boehner and the tea-partiers.  If I were feeling uncharitable, I might argue that Obama seems to be willing to lower the chances of getting a deal, as long as he raises the chances that the other guys get the blame.  And frankly, I'm not feeling very charitable right now.

But I'm not even sure what the point of blaming each other is; the public already seems to know who they're going to blame, and mostly, it's the GOP.  Desperate GOP spinning is probably not going to much change this (and yes, I know all the GOP arguments about why this is unfair, and even think that in some cases they're right.  Doesn't matter.  The PR battle is already lost.)  On the other side, twisting the knife just makes a deal less likely, for not much electoral gain.  And I can't quite bring myself to believe that Obama is deliberately trying to foment a crisis because it will redound to his party's electoral advantage.  Was it really worth pre-empting shows that people were willing to watch voluntarily?"

As two final treats, from the I-won’t-bother-feigning-objectivity school of journalism, here’s CNN’s Piers Morgan’s opening question to his post-speech guest, Grover Norquist:

MORGAN: “Some say that Grover Norquist is a man of the middle of this debt crisis. He's the president of Americans for Tax Reform and more than 250 members of Congress, nearly all of them Republicans, have signed his anti-tax pledge. Grover Norquist joins me now.

Grover, you're the eye of the tiger in all of this. People take their lead from you on the Republican side. You've been intransigent; there will be no tax increases. Most impartial observers outside of America say that is crazy. And you have got to change your attitude to this and allow some tax increases."

The full exchange, including Norquist’s replies, is embedded here.

And from Fox News, where the Obama and Boehner speeches cut into Sean Hannity’s show, here’s how Hannity summarized the speech:

“Here’s the interesting point. The words ‘balanced approach.’ My approach is balanced. All the other guys are extremists, extremists, extremists. Predictable. Boring. Blame Bush, Blame Bush. Create fear. Scare old people. Class warfare. There’s nothing new with him here.”