Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Vanity Fair of the Boehner fires
VF give us a look at the Republican/Teabagger leader in the House, John "Tan Man" Boehner and the politics of his position. Todd S. Purdum has written "The Audacity of Nope" to show us Tan Man's history and current situation as the head of a group of batshit crazy ideologues that stands to get get only crazier after November. Trouble is the Tan Man is not bat shit crazy, he is more old school politico, who prefers wheeling and dealing and closing a deal with the other side to get what both want.
Yet the reality of the modern Republican Party is that Boehner has to prove himself every day to his truculent colleagues, which is part of the reason he has offered such consistently unyielding opposition to Obama. It’s impossible to imagine a Speaker Sam Rayburn adopting a “Hell, no!” strategy with Dwight D. Eisenhower, or a Tip O’Neill adopting it with Ronald Reagan, whatever their real policy differences or partisan electoral objectives might have been. Were he to be left to his own devices, it would be easy enough to imagine that Boehner might like to close the sale for a change, instead of just closing the door. But he can’t—it would cost him his job. It was Boehner himself who shouted “Hell, no!” on the House floor just before the final vote on the health-care bill. Although he likes to say that Obama has refused to listen to G.O.P. ideas or bargain in good faith, the truth is the other way around. Boehner was among the architects of the strategy by Republicans in both houses to resist the president at every turn, regardless of whether they thought his proposals made sense or might be good for the country. Led by Boehner in the House, the Republicans voted down measures they had previously agreed with, even been the first to propose. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has openly acknowledged that this approach was a deliberate effort to build the party’s political fortunes at the expense of the president’s.Poor Tan Man,a leader only in the fact that he is out in front of his party. But if he makes the wrong turn and goes where his caucus objects, he will be torn down by those he supposedly leads.
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