The Crying Shame of John Boehner

Rolling Stone ^ | January 5th, 2011 | Matt Tiabbi

[Huck]

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. The biographer who somewhere down the line tackles the question of Boehner's legacy will do well to simply throw out any references to party affiliation, because the thing that has made Boehner who he is — the thing that has finally lifted him to the apex of legislative power in America — has almost nothing to do with his being a Republican.

The Democrats have plenty of creatures like Boehner. But in the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans own the perfect archetype — the quintessential example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades. In sports, we talk about athletes who are the "total package," and that term comes close to describing Boehner's talent for perpetuating our corrupt and debt-addled status quo: He's a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done.

SNIP

And yet, when the Republicans rolled back into the control of the House this past November on the strength of a nationwide Throw-the-Bums-Out movement, it was Boehner, the prototypical bum, who somehow clambered onto the congressional throne. It's hard to imagine that in all of American political history there has been a more unlikely marriage than John Boehner and the pitchfork-wielding, incumbent-eating Tea Party, whose blood ostensibly boils at the thought of business as usual. Because John Boehner is business as usual, a man devoted almost exclusively to ensuring his own political survival by tending faithfully to the corrupt and clanking Beltway machinery.

SNIP

The fact that Boehner supported TARP and No Child Left Behind and mega-handouts to the pharmaceutical industry and a range of other federal subsidies is hardly surprising, for this is what mainstream Washington politicians of both parties do — they take great buttloads of money from giant transnational companies, play golf with the CEOs of those same companies ("If someone I've gotten to know on the golf course comes into my office with a good argument," Boehner once said, "I tend to want to listen"), and deliver taxpayer money back to their buddies when the need arises, or sometimes even when the need doesn't arise. In this regard, Boehner has had a lot more in common with campaign-contribution-devouring Democrats like Chris Dodd and Harry Reid than he has with the Tea Party Republican voters he now ostensibly represents.

[NYpeanut]

Come on. Rolling Stone?

[Zakeet]

The article's concluding paragraph is spot on:

America is so broke, there's no longer really any money in the Treasury to give away — the job of overseeing corporate handouts that used to belong to the leaders of Congress has now moved to the Federal Reserve, which itself is so broke that it has to invent dollars out of thin air before it can give them away to influential billionaires. This leaves congressional leaders with nothing to do but their ostensible jobs — i.e., fixing the country's actual problems — and few of the current leaders have any experience with that, Boehner being a prime example. The new speaker represents an increasingly endangered class of Beltway jobholders who know how to raise money and get elected, but not much beyond that.

[snowrip]

Yeah, except that they’re communist retards, and he’s the republican Speaker of the House. See the problem?

[Red_Devil 232]

Yep when the Dems said NO to the CCB. Boehner said “NO? Well OK, how about this new plan?” And the dems keep saying NO and Boehner keeps coming up with a weaker plan. What an Idiot, he is playing right into the Dem’s hands. Go back to the CCB and let Obama and the Dems own the Down grade from AAA.

The Republican Party of “NO” is becoming the party of “OK, well how about we offer you this instead.”

Boehner won’t be around as Speaker very long.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Unfortunately, Boehner may be around long enough to screw up the works.

[Huck]

I know. The piece has its flaws, but it also has a lot going for it, or I wouldn’t have posted it.

[Notary Sojac]

Great article. On the very short list of liberals who I respect, Tabibi ranks high.

[MNJohnnie]

You can be absolutely right on every issue but if you cannot get the voters to go along with you, your view is nothing more then a fringe irrelevance in politics.

There is no political consensus among the people to support your "Burn baby burn" dogmas.

Conservative won a battle in 2010, they did not win the war. NOW the usual suspects around here would rather start a new war with their political allies instead of concentrating on finishing off the real foes to their values in the Progressive Fascist Democrat party.

[pepperdog]

Isn't that the hippy grass smoking magazine from the 1960s? If we've not learned anything else surely we've learned there was nothing right about that period in our history.

[Huck]

You're an apologist for hacks. You are the one opposing our allies. I consider our allies to be the tea-party, and the tea-party conservatives who share our views. In case you don't know, they OPPOSE Boehner's sham plan.

Limbaugh is on right now hollering that Boehner should STOP what he's doing. Stories are out today about tea party organizations calling for Boehner to be replaced.

In short, OUR side, as I see it, OPPOSES Boehner.

[pepperdog]

I take it back, there was the moon shot, that was great!

[SMARTY]

Bias THAT extreme and predictable automatically precludes their being taken seriously by anyone, except persons AS extreme and predictably biased as THEY are.

That makes ‘Rolling Stone’ an irrelevant and worthless POS

[DoughtyOne]

This isn't intended to be a slam at you for posting this.  It just angers me how biased the Leftist media outlets are.

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.

John Boehner is the ultimate target for Rolling Stone because of one truth.  He is the figurehead of the opposition to Barack Obama.

He probably won't get it right by our standards, and will deserve criticism, but he is no more a Beltway hack than Senator Ted Kennedy or any Leftist member of the House of Representatives that has been there for decades. 

Past Klu Klux Klan leaders were just fine to be seated in the Senate of the United States by Leftist's code of conduct, but John Boehner is a beast if he doesn't agree with Obama.  And make no mistake about it, that's what this is all about.  Rolling Stone knows that.

The biographer who somewhere down the line tackles the question of Boehner's legacy will do well to simply throw out any references to party affiliation, because the thing that has made Boehner who he is — the thing that has finally lifted him to the apex of legislative power in America — has almost nothing to do with his being a Republican.

LOL, a bald faced attempt to get Republicans to turn on Boehner, so that Obama can stand unopposed.  This is an attempt to destroy Boehner.  It isn't based on his political views, but stoops to personal shots to accomplish the task.  This is a bankrupt editorial.  It can't stand without personal shots.  It can't stand just addressing the legistlation Boehner is actually lofting.

The Democrats have plenty of creatures like Boehner. But in the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans own the perfect archetype — the quintessential example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades.

And yet, when important legislation popped up with "the quintessential Democrat example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades", the Rolling Stone staff was too busy reading the Communist Party Daily to comment about their history, trying to besmirch them to defeat their efforts.  It didn't criticize them on point concerning legislative goals either.

In sports, we talk about athletes who are the "total package," and that term comes close to describing Boehner's talent for perpetuating our corrupt and debt-addled status quo: He's a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done.

Boehner has been the Speaker of the House since January of 2009.  Whatever perpetuating he has done, would have to be based on his keeping the Congressional Democrat establishment in place.  If that establishment was so bad when he took over, why wasn't the Rolling Stone ripping it to shreds prior to Boehner becomming the Speaker?

Once again, what does any of this have to do with his party's bill and the attempt to get federal spending under control?  Well, nothing.  Throwing mud at Boehner is all this amounts to.  And that's despicable.

SNIP

And yet, when the Republicans rolled back into the control of the House this past November on the strength of a nationwide Throw-the-Bums-Out movement, it was Boehner, the prototypical bum, who somehow clambered onto the congressional throne. It's hard to imagine that in all of American political history there has been a more unlikely marriage than John Boehner and the pitchfork-wielding, incumbent-eating Tea Party, whose blood ostensibly boils at the thought of business as usual. Because John Boehner is business as usual, a man devoted almost exclusively to ensuring his own political survival by tending faithfully to the corrupt and clanking Beltway machinery.

Once again, R.S. is back to trashing Boehner for his supposed vile nature.  Sorry R.S., Boehner is operating within the parameters that you never found to be despicable until a Republican became Speaker.

I may not be a big fan of Boehner, but I could spot an illogical nonsensical biased double-dealing hit-job this disgusting from outer space.

SNIP

The fact that Boehner supported TARP and No Child Left Behind and mega-handouts to the pharmaceutical industry and a range of other federal subsidies is hardly surprising, for this is what mainstream Washington politicians of both parties do — they take great buttloads of money from giant transnational companies, play golf with the CEOs of those same companies ("If someone I've gotten to know on the golf course comes into my office with a good argument," Boehner once said, "I tend to want to listen"), and deliver taxpayer money back to their buddies when the need arises, or sometimes even when the need doesn't arise.

Geez, R.S., take a breath once in a while.  I've been known to string a long sentence together myself, but this is truly a doozie.

Was Boehner Speaker of the House when Tarp, No Child Left Behind, and Medical Part D were instituted?  Oh, that's right.  He wasn't.  Did Rolling Stone object to those plans?  Oh that's right.  It didn't.

Folks, I would urge you to pay close attention to the quotation marks in that paragraph sentence.  Much is read into what Boehner actually stated, to make it much worse than it actually was.

Boehner should listen to his constituency.  I know the Left would have us believe that corporations don't deserve a voice in any debate.  We saw evidence of that, when Hillary Clinton set up study pannels to develop her Health Care plan, without including Health Care providers in the mix.  Oh yes, she was convinced she could fix health care, without hearing a single word from the experts working in that industry.  Here R.S. lays out that premise again.

In this regard, Boehner has had a lot more in common with campaign-contribution-devouring Democrats like Chris Dodd and Harry Reid than he has with the Tea Party Republican voters he now ostensibly represents.

Yeah, and who did R.S. favor in those campaigns, Chriss Dodd and Harry Reid, or their oponents?

There is room to take Boehner to task for what is not included in his bill.  It doesn't carve off the $1.6 - $1.8 trillion in deficits each year.  Instead it proposes to cut deficits roughly $4 trillion over the next ten years, as deficists are slated to increase about $16 to $18 trillion.  So we're facing an increase of the federal debt to $30 to $32 trillion dollars by 2022.  Does Rolling Stone address this, to take Boehner to task?  No.

Does it critcize him for lofting a balanced budget amendment that will never see the light of day?  No.  In fact, Rolling Stone didn't address one single tenet of the bill the House passed with Boehner's support.  It didn't address one single tenet of his beliefs related to the debt crisis.

It was nothing but a hit job.  It was designed to peal off support for Boehner and Republicans.

When you're a Leftist, it's okay to act like you agree with Conservatives as long as it furthers your "ENDS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS" goals.  In the above, R.S. acts as if it's as disgusted with past Democrats as we are.  It acts as if it's as upset with the Beltway hacks as we are.  In truth Rolling Stone has never seen a Left-wing hack it didn't like.  None the less, they try to trash the Beltway hacks and there-by Boehner.  The double sets of standards the Left have are never more appearant than when they want to take down a Republican "they think" they can tarnish by saying they are doing what Democrats always have without any critcism whatsoever.

If Rolling Stone thinks it's diatribe here is an effective hit on Boehner, it is sadly mistaken.  Instead it destroys Rolling Stone for not having the awarness to understand what the important issues of the day are.

Going back years to tarninsh a guy, when there is a critical issue at hand, is beyond childish.  It's infantile.

[Huck]

In fact, Rolling Stone didn't address one single tenet of the bill the House passed with Boehner's support. It didn't address one single tenet of his beliefs related to the debt crisis.

This piece is from last January.

[Chi-townChief]

Rolling Stone = commie propaganda

[Huck]

I take this piece, from last January, like this:

He's saying that Boehner is a typical bought-and-paid-for hack who has more in common with Reid and Dodd than with tea partiers. He was predicting---correctly---that there would eventually be tension between Boehner and the tea party that inadvertantly thrust him into the speakership. He correctly predicted that this would probably come to a head when the debt limit came up again.

Now it's up to us to figure out what to do about it. It doesn't make me want to defend Boehner.

[DoughtyOne]

Huck, destroying our leader (for better or worse) six days before August 2nd accomplishes what? It throws our side into disarray and makes us look like country bumpkins, incapable of running Congress.

It’s certainly not going to garner support for the best deal we can get.

Yes, my comments focused on this current situation were irrelevant, based on the date of the article. Why you chose this opportunity to post something from six months ago that is negative about Boehner baffles me.

What did you expect to gain by helping to trash Boehner now?

Do you honestly see a benefit to getting him to step down 72 hours before the budget deal needs to be made?

[DoughtyOne]

I don’t particularly like the idea of defending a man I have criticized frequently myself. I still see this as a war of sorts, and some are trying to decapitate the only General we have in the midst of an important battle.

This sounds like a good idea to you? Seriously.

Is it your take that Boehner is destroyed, then a solid guy steps in and makes a deal Obama has refused to make up until now?

Explain your best case scenario so I can understand why you would want to do this.

[Huck]

Huck, destroying our leader (for better or worse) six days before August 2nd accomplishes what?

He's not our leader. He's the current GOP House leader. What does it accomplish? It gets a proven loser out of power.

It throws our side into disarray and makes us look like country bumpkins, incapable of running Congress.

It makes the TEA party look like the committed non-partisan grass roots movement it claims to be.

It’s certainly not going to garner support for the best deal we can get.

No deal is the best deal we can get.

Why you chose this opportunity to post something from six months ago that is negative about Boehner baffles me.

Just happened to be going over some old Tiabbi articles on a different topic, ran across this one and found it timely.

What did you expect to gain by helping to trash Boehner now?

Diminishing him.

Do you honestly see a benefit to getting him to step down 72 hours before the budget deal needs to be made?

I don't expect him to step down in 72 hours. I also don't believe we need a deal in 72 hours. This is TARP style phony crisis nonsense. Not falling for it.

[Huck]

Best case scenario: Tea Party reasserts itself. Debt ceiling deal doesn’t happen. Obama raises debt ceiling on 14th amendment grounds. Tea parties take over leadership in the House and obstruct from here to election day.