The current GOP is the end result of Reagan’s 11th Commandment imo.
If you can’t call out the crazy when it shows its face, then it multiplies to the point that it becomes the party. Once you’ve given crazy a pass on being crazy, it drives away not-crazy until you aren’t left with much else. The Tea Party should’ve been called out long ago, but the GOP really, really wanted an upswing after Bush so they welcomed it. Add in “never criticize a Republican” unspoke rule and they just took over. Since the party had already lost most of it members anyway (like half of previous GOP identified as independent after Bush), the new party was quickly populated by the worst of the fringe since they were the only ones who never left.
But he DIDN’T. What he did is ram through very partisan policies that would be stopped in the Senate because the GOP didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority there. So nothing of any import happened.
Then, when something DID ABSOLUTELY need to happen to, say, keep the country’s most basic services running, he would try and ram through very partisan bills - failing every time - and then only when the country was on the brink of economic disaster would he reluctantly allow only the most minimal compromise to happen despite his better judgement.
And yeah, you could point to the fact that he’d probably lose his position if he actually, you know, governed using the compromise-based system that the Constitution was written to engender, but that’s just his excuse, not a pardon.
Oh, I agree. That’s much of what I didn’t like. But I acknowledge his being between a rock and a crazy place. If he’d done anything else, he’d have been forcibly ousted as Speaker a long time ago.
Apparently he referred to the wingnuts as “false prophets” on Face the Nation. LOL. Yeah, this pretty much confirms all of the speculation in this thread. No government shutdown in the short term, who knows what happens with the debt ceiling.
He really does call his lunatic fringe folks “false prophets”.
He makes a few comment’s about his fellow republicans, mostly the wingnuts I suspect.
“All done over the last four and a half years with a Democrat president and all voted against by my most conservative members because it wasn’t good enough,” Boehner said. “Really? You know this is the part that I really don’t understand…Our founders didn’t want some parliamentary system where if you won the majority you got to do whatever you wanted to do. They wanted this long, slow press. So change comes slowly, and obviously too slowly for some.”
Indeed, virtually every continuing resolution, debt ceiling increase, tax extender or other must-pass bill over the last five years has required from 30 to 50 Democrats to overcome the deficit Mr. Boehner chronically encountered among his own members.
Mr. Boehner’s handicap with his troops was never more evident than in the fall of 2008, as the crisis on Wall Street threatened to crater the economy and Republican political hopes in the coming election. Mr. Boehner and his leadership posse — Eric Cantor, Roy D. Blunt and others — engaged in furious negotiations with the Bush White House and congressional Democrats to fashion a rescue bill, and had to swallow tough provisions Ms. Pelosi insisted upon, like requiring repayment of the taxpayer bailout with interest.
He promised to deliver 100 votes to support his own president’s bill, and he went to the House floor and, in tears, pleaded with his conference to accept the “crap sandwich” he had negotiated. In typical fashion, Republicans voted “no” and the first bailout bill failed; when it was soon resurrected, following the stock market’s 777-point plunge, Mr. Boehner still could not deliver the promised G.O.P. votes.
The very notion of the RINO was the first glimpse into the tragic mess the republican party has become. Where conservative republicans were essentially pushed further and further away, and more extreme ideas started to take over the core of the party.
Poor Boehnor. In this thread he is attacked from left for not violating the Hastert rule to being criticized for breaking the Hastert rule on key issues due to crazy right wing group of Members. He can’t win.
I think modern comme have hurt party unity because too easy to torment popular resistance to political establishment.
Hastert rule? Is that from the guy currently charged with criminal activity? I don’t think his rules are good rules to follow. He’s currently in plea-bargaining.
I have a better suggestion: Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.). Here are five reasons why.
Amash is a stickler for House rules who has never missed a vote.
Amash personally explains every vote he casts on his Facebook page.
He’d make time for lawmakers to actually read the bills they pass.
Amash represents a new generation of Republicans — literally.
John Boehner does not like him.
I don’t agree with many of Amash’s positions, but I certainly like how he approaches procedural issues (as mentioned in the first 3 points). Following procedure is a major job qualification for Speaker. Of course, since he doesn’t accept much in the way of corporate money (93% individual contributions; compare that to Boehner’s 31%) there’s no way the rest of the bought-and-paid-for reps would ever let it happen.
If nothing else, Kevin McCarthy will provide some decent comedy. His recent Benghazi news-making flub aside, even when reading from prepared remarks it seems the soon-to-be speaker has a hard time, uh, speaking…
Some excerpts from a recent speech:
“If I look at history of where we are it seems a lot like 1979."
“We must engage this war of radical Islam if our life depended on it because it does."
“I have visited Poland, Hungria, Estonia. Visited in our, uh, the allies in the Arab Gulf.”
"We live on the greatest nation that’s ever been on the face of the Earth.”
"we need an effective politically strategy to match the military strategy,”
"A safe zone would create a stem the flow of refugees.”
“…can’t keep the simple promise, to all of our heroes to the need when they need it most.”
