A lot of people I think kind of sympathize with Boehner and can't blame him for stepping down. As he himself said a few years ago 'I need this job like a hole in my head.'
As Todd S. Purdum of Politico puts it: "Being a GOP House speaker might be the worst job in Washington."
"Like the sudden death of a terminal cancer patient whose doctors thought he had at least a few more months to live, the dramatic demise of embattled Speaker John Boehner was a surprise that could hardly be counted as a shock.
But in a larger sense, Boehner’s fall was just the latest example of the self-consuming culture that has bedeviled the House GOP conference for nearly 60 years—all the way back to the Eisenhower era. Whom the Gods would destroy, it sometimes seems, they first make the Republican leaders of Congress."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-resignation-house-speaker-history-213193#ixzz3n1mciP80
Again, he comes across as pretty human the last few days. He just looks so happy to get out of prison.
Here he lashed out against 'false prophets.'
“We got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen,” he added.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/john-boehner-gop-false-prophets-214120#ixzz3n1nucujT
Indeed, even now you have most conservatives celebrating having his head. What's interesting is in how much denial conservatives are about Boehner: they honestly believe he's the reason they couldn't get rid of ACA, defnund Planned Parenthood or stop the Iran deal.
"But it could have been worse. Despite his best efforts, the Speaker wasn’t able to roll conservatives on some of his biggest priorities. For years, he hoped to cut a “grand bargain,” trading spending cuts for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases. Conservatives would not let him, and pressure from the grassroots forced the House instead to work toward the 2011 Budget Control Act, a package of cuts-only reforms that the Speaker has only tried to undermine ever since. And on comprehensive immigration reform—code-talk for amnesty—the Speaker never hid his views: “I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue. And I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground.” As recently as last September, Speaker Boehner told Hugh Hewitt that he was trying to “create an environment where you could do immigration reform in a responsible way next year.” It’s taken years of dedicated opposition by conservatives to prevent the Speaker’s push for amnesty from coming to fruition."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-betrayed-his-party-213191#ixzz3n1oZ2PMH
"It had nothing to do with Boehner's jobs agenda or whatever else he thought it did. Grassroots conservatives gave him the majority on the promise that he would repeal Obamacare, stop executive amnesty and rein in the Obama Administration. He did none of the above."
"If the House is unruly at this stage, it is because John Boehner has made it so. Never before had we seen retribution from a Speaker against his own Members at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and K Street lobbyists."
"His departure is a good thing for politics. It shows that power resides in the governed, something a lot of folks in D.C. forget. Boehner was not representative of the conservative base that gave him the majority and the Speakership. A growing portion of his Members are that base and so it is natural that he should be pushed out by them."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-resigns-expert-roundup-weigh-in-speaker-213192#ixzz3n1ppch3C
So the Tea Partiers are living in sweet illusion. They aren't going to magically be able to do these things now.
However, in thinking more about Boehner and his history I have to kind of revise a comment I made which is too bad as Tom Brown liked it.
"While he's wrong on most things he clearly was too reality based for his Tea Party House."
"I agree!... and well put. The Tea Party contingent doesn't even belong at the adult table, let alone the House of Representatives."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/dysfunctional-gop-eats-its-leader-john.html#comments
I think Tom always has the desire to believe that there are some reasonable Republicans out there somewhere. LOL.
And I do think that Boehner is too reality based for them-though any Speaker will be for them. That's why it's the worst job in the world as being the Speaker you have to be reality based.
However, the dark forces that destroyed Boehner were used and unleashed by him during the first two years of Obama's term when his party was in the minority. So he's not a totally innocent victim as Matt Yglesias argues:
"The thing about Boehner is that however cleverly you think he played the bad situation dealt to him as speaker, he very much obtained the speakership by encouraging and deploying the very same ideas that his internal enemies later turned against him. It is easy to forget this in retrospect, but in early 2009 Barack Obama was enjoying approval ratings in the high 60s. Even a third of self-described Republicans said he was doing a good job. The usefulness of deficit spending and fiscal stimulus to bolster a failing economy was, at the time, widely accepted. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi both voted for a stimulus bill in 2008, they both voted for TARP, and they both voted for the bill authorizing the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"But rather than cut a deal with the White House over a new round of stimulus in 2009, Boehner whipped his caucus into unanimous opposition and continued that posture of unrelenting, uncompromising opposition to Obama administration initiatives throughout the next two years."
"Boehner didn't just argue that Obama's policies were misguided in some respects. He argued that Obama was "snuffing out" the America that he grew up in and that, as a result, "there's a political rebellion brewing, and I don't think we've seen anything like it since 1776."
"The dual-pronged strategy of refusing to compromise on Capitol Hill while whipping the grassroots into a frenzy about Obama's looming tyranny worked. Boehner succeeded in keeping Republican hands entirely clean of responsibility for the state of the economy, and mobilized grassroots conservatives to turn out in much larger numbers than liberals in 2010."
"The result, however, was that after winning the midterms, the people who put Boehner there expected him to act as if he actually believed opposition to the Obama administration's policies was comparable to the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. He's never really been willing to do that, because it's ridiculous. But he did say it."
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/25/9397997/john-boehners-resignation-explained
As Todd S. Purdum of Politico puts it: "Being a GOP House speaker might be the worst job in Washington."
"Like the sudden death of a terminal cancer patient whose doctors thought he had at least a few more months to live, the dramatic demise of embattled Speaker John Boehner was a surprise that could hardly be counted as a shock.
But in a larger sense, Boehner’s fall was just the latest example of the self-consuming culture that has bedeviled the House GOP conference for nearly 60 years—all the way back to the Eisenhower era. Whom the Gods would destroy, it sometimes seems, they first make the Republican leaders of Congress."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-resignation-house-speaker-history-213193#ixzz3n1mciP80
Again, he comes across as pretty human the last few days. He just looks so happy to get out of prison.
Here he lashed out against 'false prophets.'
“We got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen,” he added.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/john-boehner-gop-false-prophets-214120#ixzz3n1nucujT
Indeed, even now you have most conservatives celebrating having his head. What's interesting is in how much denial conservatives are about Boehner: they honestly believe he's the reason they couldn't get rid of ACA, defnund Planned Parenthood or stop the Iran deal.
"But it could have been worse. Despite his best efforts, the Speaker wasn’t able to roll conservatives on some of his biggest priorities. For years, he hoped to cut a “grand bargain,” trading spending cuts for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases. Conservatives would not let him, and pressure from the grassroots forced the House instead to work toward the 2011 Budget Control Act, a package of cuts-only reforms that the Speaker has only tried to undermine ever since. And on comprehensive immigration reform—code-talk for amnesty—the Speaker never hid his views: “I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue. And I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground.” As recently as last September, Speaker Boehner told Hugh Hewitt that he was trying to “create an environment where you could do immigration reform in a responsible way next year.” It’s taken years of dedicated opposition by conservatives to prevent the Speaker’s push for amnesty from coming to fruition."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-betrayed-his-party-213191#ixzz3n1oZ2PMH
"It had nothing to do with Boehner's jobs agenda or whatever else he thought it did. Grassroots conservatives gave him the majority on the promise that he would repeal Obamacare, stop executive amnesty and rein in the Obama Administration. He did none of the above."
"If the House is unruly at this stage, it is because John Boehner has made it so. Never before had we seen retribution from a Speaker against his own Members at the behest of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and K Street lobbyists."
"His departure is a good thing for politics. It shows that power resides in the governed, something a lot of folks in D.C. forget. Boehner was not representative of the conservative base that gave him the majority and the Speakership. A growing portion of his Members are that base and so it is natural that he should be pushed out by them."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/boehner-resigns-expert-roundup-weigh-in-speaker-213192#ixzz3n1ppch3C
So the Tea Partiers are living in sweet illusion. They aren't going to magically be able to do these things now.
However, in thinking more about Boehner and his history I have to kind of revise a comment I made which is too bad as Tom Brown liked it.
"While he's wrong on most things he clearly was too reality based for his Tea Party House."
"I agree!... and well put. The Tea Party contingent doesn't even belong at the adult table, let alone the House of Representatives."
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/09/dysfunctional-gop-eats-its-leader-john.html#comments
I think Tom always has the desire to believe that there are some reasonable Republicans out there somewhere. LOL.
And I do think that Boehner is too reality based for them-though any Speaker will be for them. That's why it's the worst job in the world as being the Speaker you have to be reality based.
However, the dark forces that destroyed Boehner were used and unleashed by him during the first two years of Obama's term when his party was in the minority. So he's not a totally innocent victim as Matt Yglesias argues:
"The thing about Boehner is that however cleverly you think he played the bad situation dealt to him as speaker, he very much obtained the speakership by encouraging and deploying the very same ideas that his internal enemies later turned against him. It is easy to forget this in retrospect, but in early 2009 Barack Obama was enjoying approval ratings in the high 60s. Even a third of self-described Republicans said he was doing a good job. The usefulness of deficit spending and fiscal stimulus to bolster a failing economy was, at the time, widely accepted. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi both voted for a stimulus bill in 2008, they both voted for TARP, and they both voted for the bill authorizing the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
"But rather than cut a deal with the White House over a new round of stimulus in 2009, Boehner whipped his caucus into unanimous opposition and continued that posture of unrelenting, uncompromising opposition to Obama administration initiatives throughout the next two years."
"Boehner didn't just argue that Obama's policies were misguided in some respects. He argued that Obama was "snuffing out" the America that he grew up in and that, as a result, "there's a political rebellion brewing, and I don't think we've seen anything like it since 1776."
"The dual-pronged strategy of refusing to compromise on Capitol Hill while whipping the grassroots into a frenzy about Obama's looming tyranny worked. Boehner succeeded in keeping Republican hands entirely clean of responsibility for the state of the economy, and mobilized grassroots conservatives to turn out in much larger numbers than liberals in 2010."
"The result, however, was that after winning the midterms, the people who put Boehner there expected him to act as if he actually believed opposition to the Obama administration's policies was comparable to the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. He's never really been willing to do that, because it's ridiculous. But he did say it."
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/25/9397997/john-boehners-resignation-explained
Note that his opposition to Obama's stimulus was totally partisan as he voted for George W. Bush's.
So the real point is that the GOP can never by the governing majority party it dreams of being.
There is simply no getting along with Republicans-even Republicans can't get along with Republicans. This is what comes from being the fanatical party of reaction.
Indeed as Purdon showed above, even when Eisenhower won in 1952 the GOP wasn't able to function running the House so it was just as well that the Democrats controlled it the next 40 years.
All the recent troubles we've had in Congress has come because the Republicans were able to win the House back.
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465074731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443438083&sr=8-1&keywords=it%27s+worse+than+you+think
This is the uncomfortable lesson of those who want more bipartisanship in Congress. They vaguely remember that there was a time when the Republican party wasn't so obstructionist. Right that was when
1. The Democrats controlled everything
2. The GOP accepted its second class status
3. Though an important caveat was that the Dems weren't totally liberal back then nor was the GOP totally conservative-there was some overlap between the parties on ideology now there's none.
I've argued that we will only get a functioning government when we have clear one party rule.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/bipartisanship-is-not-solution-it-is.html
There is no more pernicious myth than the idea that divided government works.There are actually some not so sensible Centrists in the media who cite the 90s as an example! They paper over the fact that the GOP spent the entire 90s trying to force Clinton out of office. If that's their picture of the Garden of Eden they are kidding themselves.
So the real point is that the GOP can never by the governing majority party it dreams of being.
There is simply no getting along with Republicans-even Republicans can't get along with Republicans. This is what comes from being the fanatical party of reaction.
Indeed as Purdon showed above, even when Eisenhower won in 1952 the GOP wasn't able to function running the House so it was just as well that the Democrats controlled it the next 40 years.
All the recent troubles we've had in Congress has come because the Republicans were able to win the House back.
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465074731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443438083&sr=8-1&keywords=it%27s+worse+than+you+think
This is the uncomfortable lesson of those who want more bipartisanship in Congress. They vaguely remember that there was a time when the Republican party wasn't so obstructionist. Right that was when
1. The Democrats controlled everything
2. The GOP accepted its second class status
3. Though an important caveat was that the Dems weren't totally liberal back then nor was the GOP totally conservative-there was some overlap between the parties on ideology now there's none.
I've argued that we will only get a functioning government when we have clear one party rule.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/bipartisanship-is-not-solution-it-is.html
There is no more pernicious myth than the idea that divided government works.There are actually some not so sensible Centrists in the media who cite the 90s as an example! They paper over the fact that the GOP spent the entire 90s trying to force Clinton out of office. If that's their picture of the Garden of Eden they are kidding themselves.
Now in saying that the answer to our problems is one party rule I can imagine some might argue that this doesn't prove it should be the Democrats that rule. But it kind of does when you see how the GOP is incapable of agreeing even with itself.
Governing is about agreement and consensus-after all, governing is taking action, but how do we take action if we can never agree on any particular course of action?
If we got this again, it would be an even stronger coalition than that one as that Democratic majority was based on a very shaky coalition between Northern liberals and Southern segregationists.
A Democratic majority today would truly be a liberal majority.
Governing is about agreement and consensus-after all, governing is taking action, but how do we take action if we can never agree on any particular course of action?
But the modern Republican party is not a party of governing, it's the party of opposition. Remember how Nixon thought he was in a disadvantage in 1960 as he had a record in the Eisenhower Administration to defend. His preference and his party's preference has always been about being in opposition.
That's why the only worthy goal of politics today is a new era of Democratic dominance like we had in the New Deal era which ended with Nixon's election in 1968.
If we got this again, it would be an even stronger coalition than that one as that Democratic majority was based on a very shaky coalition between Northern liberals and Southern segregationists.
A Democratic majority today would truly be a liberal majority.
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