Posted on 10/13/2013 6:25:30 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
In contemplating the bizarre, incompetent, and feckless behavior of House Speaker John Boehner over the years, I am reminded of the signature scene from the 1969 Western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff: In it,the sheriff (James Garner) ridicules dim-witted prisoner Joe Dandy (Bruce Dern), deriding him and maintaining full control even though his jail has no bars. The money scene is from 2:40 through 3:30: The cell on the right is yours. We don't have any bars yet...but we're gonna operate just as if the bars are there...so while you're in this jail, you stay on that side of the line, and you and I will get along just fine...stay right there and behave yourself." This mocking manipulation is backed up only by some red paint drizzled on the floor where the bars should be, yet Danby is convinced it is the bloody remains of the last inmate. That blood, like the fanciful memories of the 1995 shutdown that calcify the speaker and many other Republicans, is merely a fiction. Even über-liberal pollster Nate Silver recognizes this, insulting the Beltway conventional wisdom on both sides this week -- and correctly stating that political consequences of the 1995 shutdown are "overrated in Washington's mythology."
...(snip)....
And yet, Boehner remains traumatized by 1995 and is cowering in the corner of a brig, where the bars have been fabricated in his fearful and isolated head. Of course, prisoner Boehner is joined by most establishment Republicans in this fantasy penitentiary. It's the big house for little minds -- drones held captive by the absurd assumption that the entire nation thinks the way the Beltway population does. They remain convinced that the red paint of '95 was real GOP blood.
...(cont)
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
ping
Pretty good analogy... another way of pointing out Tammy Faye Boehner’s gutlessness is to simply state that he is the only alleged man in the world that actually fears the limp-wristed pansy infesting the White House.
If you were a football player this would be a head-on tackle. Sharp work, sir.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer in Animal House when addressing Flounder:
“Tan, drunk, and stupid is no way to govern Mr. Speaker”....
In the 1940s, Flagstaff, in Coconino County, Arizona had a Sheriff named Perry Francis. His jail was small, however, only having 3 or 4 cells. So if it was full of serious offenders, as Sheriff Francis went on his rounds in the city, the other arrested would tag along with him.
They wore no handcuffs, and in fact the Sheriff had no handcuffs. The reason being that he didn’t *need* handcuffs.
This because his reputation as a fast draw and deadly shot were known to all. No prisoner of his would dare to try and run away, because he knew if he tried, he would be a dead man.
I mention this because staying in a jail without bars because you are a dimwit is one thing, but staying in a jail without bars may also be for a very good reason.
Something that should be considered when pondering John Boehner. What we see is him sitting in a cell without bars. What we don’t see is why.
Bragging here.
For years I have been posting that you can not expect any Congressional leader of a conservative leaning to be effective once he gains power inside the beltway. It takes years of having to work with liberals to achieve any political power. And, all those years are indoctrinating you to respond with a certain, to I dare say Pavlovian response, to outside stimuli.
Add to this how you obtain political power in Congress. The only route short of a massive replacement of almost all its members (see Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders) is to sit in the back and follow your leadership’s orders. After several terms in office that attitude becomes your default response to everything that crosses your desk!
In short you can not take a lap dog and expect him to be an effective guard dog for a large home.
Wow. Did this analysis smack the bullseye!
Nice. What a great allusion to the jail with no bars. A very funny movie does make the case for the shaky core of one collapsed Republican leader.
Courage is dangerously hard to come by in the Republican Party.
Thanks...I thought it was a funny/effective/sadly true analogy....
Guys, he’s actually standing up to El-Presidente for a change; now is not the time to ridicule him. Wait until after he caves.
I think that’s true, and then you combine it with the realities of the frailties of human nature, and the logistics of being surrounded by a population that is 90% liberal and maybe 9% moderate and 1% conservative for 5,10,20 years....and it wears down once good people.
Boehner was a good guy at one time. Even Lindsey Graham was okay for a while....Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, many have been worn down to pathetic quantum particles of what they once were. Hail Jim DeMint, who seemed to somehow defy gravity and get better and better.....the exception that proves the rule.
Boehner strikes me as a man playing not to lose; the surest way to bring about defeat strategically. He seems confused that his enemies are actually fighting him.
He actually did cave, but Obama saved him from himself. This gives him a second chance. I was supporting him until he turned on a dime, which as stated in the article, was due totally to that absaurd poll by NBC.
Yep, the entire GOP estab is in the prison with no bars right there with JB....
i know where you’re heading with that, and who knows - maybe someone does “have something on him.” Problem is, unless you know what it is and can prove it, won’t make a very compelling piece.
Meanwhile, I am sure that this article strikes at some of the truth -
I completely agree with you on this. Boehner is privvy to way more information than we are. Yet we just don’t know what it is that is making him supposedly cower in a corner of a jail cell with no bars?
It’s tempting to think that it’s all part of his me me me persona go along to get along oh my goodness I might lose my speakership or worse yet my job. I’m tempted to believe it too. But what if the scary scenarios that so many patriots here on FR are true? That Obama is truly insane and drunk with power and cares not one whit about anything or anybody outside this? What if its true that he plans to impose martial law after he goads the people into rioting. What if its true?
Then, he’s a patriot girding his loins for another battle, another day. Plz people give him a break. I’ll be the first to say he has made me so dang mad to spit bullets but hey, what if.
Close, but not quite: the assumption in this premise is that Boehner believes Obama is the sheriff - not that I believe it, or that it’s actually the case.
That’s a pretty significant difference.....
You just stated what Donald Rumsfeld would term a "known unknown" - and yes, it is technically true that he may be, and that info may be pertinent to his actions here.
But I don't think so. Let me give you what Rummy would call a "known" - which is that Boehner's cave came immediately upon release of the absurd NBC WSJ poll showing the GOP was taking a beating on this issue.
Allow me another "known" - which is that Boehner has always lived in fear of shut down and this is based on his recollection of 1995.
And a third "known" - at least by me - is that these beltway operators are not all that smart and are astonishingly unfamiliar with the country outside the 9 rich counties known as AMERICA.
Therefore, I will stick with my "knowns" over the "known unknown"
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