Ms. Brinkmann said that given the states' authority under the 21st Amendment to regulate alcohol, the issue was more complex constitutionally than tobacco-related regulation.
A Democratic aide said the senators would be inclined to have the president declare unilateral authority under the 14th Amendment, which says the debt's validity "shall not be questioned".
But Mr. Obama declined to answer directly, and his administration has ruled out proposals to either invoke authority under the 14th Amendment or mint a platinum coin as a sort of collateral for more debt.
The deeper issue was what the consequences might be if the court decided that the public services part of the law exceeded Congress's authority under the 14th Amendment.
The most widely discussed strategy would be for President Obama to invoke authority under the 14th Amendment and essentially order the federal government to keep borrowing, an option that was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton during an earlier debt standoff in 2011.
Since the federal government had no authority under the 10th Amendment to regulate medicines, that power being reserved by individual states in 1937, a tax was the only viable way to legislate marijuana.
But Ms. Huffington, while lacking such equanimity, believes that all will be resolved by that deadline either with a Reid-McConnell compromise or Obama invoking his authority under the 14th Amendment, if necessary.
Former President Clinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, among many other political leaders are calling upon the President to use his authority under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to pay for the lawful debts the federal government has made.
During Thursday's talks between the president's team and congressional leadership, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner reportedly revealed that he believed the administration did not have the constitutional authority under the 14th Amendment to simply ignore the debt ceiling and continue borrowing money.
Mr. Dallek suggests that Mr. Kissinger "would have done well to at least consult with other cabinet members about suspending the president's authority under the Constitution's 25th Amendment"; such a move, he writes, would "have signaled Kissinger's greater concern with the national well-being than with Nixon's survival".
