At the portrait unveiling of soon to be ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ex-Republican Speaker John Boehner delivered a blubbering tribute to the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives.
Choking on his own tears (not uncommon for the habitually emotionally overwhelmed Ohio politician turned weed influence-peddler), Boehner not only showered praise upon Pelosi but bragged how his daughters admired her and were Democrats.
About the only thing Boehner got partially right was his declaration how much more effective Pelosi was as speaker than he was from 2011 to 2015. The post-Newt Era hasn’t exactly been the halcyon days for Republican speakers.
Now let’s for a moment shelve the Pelosi record, for there’s much to discuss and dislike, and dwell upon the Boehner familial reference.
The former speaker and his kids enjoy their prestige, and post-Congressional financially lucrative careers, because of Republicans.
By that I mean Republican voters.
Spoiler alert: Don’t expect too much to come of any Republican-led Hunter Biden hearings because the president’s ne’er-do-well son is like his art: nothing special nor unique. The children of other DC pols just have cleaner laptops.
Plastics salesmen (Boehner’s pre-Congress job) don’t make high-end Beltway lobbyist money.
Yet there he was trying to impress Democrats gathered with his spattering “we’ve all seen the light” confession. The embarrassing homage is the swamp culture at its most pathetic.
It’s one thing to accentuate the positive, yet another to play fanboy.
Speaker is the second most powerful federal elected official after President (vice-president is a thankless gig, just ask those who have held it) and to be elevated to that high station is not just a tremendous honor but one that is attained through the election of a minimum of 218 candidates across the nation.
While a volunteer going door to door in eastern Washington State doesn’t directly work for the person who is selected to preside over the people’s chamber, they essentially do by extension.
And you’d think this reality would not be lost on someone who has to stump for candidates in states that a presidential nominee may not bother spending any time visiting.
Consider the role New York State played in giving the GOP a majority in the Congress that will convene next month.
But Washington has a way of facilitating a politician forgetting themselves and in the case of a speaker, the over 200 constituencies ultimately responsible for their rockstar parking and opulent suite of offices.
This would not be Boehner’s first “testimony ” or rather repentance on politics since he traded the gavel for cash and fabulous prizes.
Not satisfied with just cashing out after an undistinguished tenure as the supposed leader of the opposition during the Obama Administration (unless you count a papal visit as an accomplishment), Boehner wrote a book excoriating his fellow Republicans who opted to stay to serve their constituents in Congress and fight for our values.
If you’re going to call Sarah Palin a quitter then you best chase that admonishment with Boehner’s curious hue.
Sincere conservative voters and donors have been played for suckers for three decades by these charlatans whose words don’t reflect what they really think of our principles and our voters.
Eco-fundamentalists and cultural Marxists who fund the Democrats can’t even tolerate a decidedly liberal yet stylishly iconoclastic Kyrsten Sinema and have only managed to restrain their fury at Joe Manchin by virtue of his deciding vote empowering their control over the US Senate.
The brazen anti-GOP posturing by Boehner, Mitt Romney, and their cohorts in the consultant class is the equivalent of a burglar pissing on your rug after first slinking off with your television.
Want more proof? Here was Adam Kinzinger’s farewell to Congress after spending his final term in office in full-on simp mode to the DC Swamp and its Democrat masters…
They needed us but the GOP establishment never really liked us.
And now that they’re untethered from the electorate and are embedded in K Street office buildings con-servatives (no sic) like Boehner and now Kinzinger can insult the party base in bestselling books and mock the volunteers who invested sweat equity into their campaigns in interviews and promotional tours.
And still have drinks at the Capitol Hill Club adjoining the RNC building.
Earl Long once remarked that a good politician is one who stays bought.
Boehner, or rather the Boehners, apparently don’t even meet Uncle Earl’s charitable estimation of acceptable political character.
And there’s a number of other nominal Republicans still wasting space that would be better occupied by others in the GOP House and Senate caucus rooms. Lookin’ at you, Bill Cassidy!
The next Republican speaker needs to be more Newt than Boehner or Paul Ryan. Anything less would be unacceptable.