Who is Boehner, who is he?
I’m going to say at the outset that I think John Boehner is a poor leader, and I don’t trust him—either to do what’s right for the Republicans, the conservatives, or for the country. As long ago as December of 2012 I said he should be replaced as Speaker.
But I don’t agree with those who would call him “clueless, gullible, stubborn, out of touch, and a Dunce,” although I have absolutely no difficulty seeing why a person might call him that. Maybe they’re even right, although I hope not, for all our sakes, because he’s Speaker at a time when we need someone very very smart and very very principled.
Well, we’re not going to get that; I’m not alleging that’s who Boehner is. And I confess I find him very opaque (and no cracks about orange skin, either). He certainly seems like a simple, cloddish sort. But I don’t think he is, because I don’t think a person gets to be Speaker of the House that way.
I’ve already written about this topic, and so the next portion of this post is going to be a recycling (slightly edited) of something I wrote back in October of 2013, when I was trying to puzzle out this same question: who is Boehner, and what does he think he’s doing?:
Conservatives are predictably lashing out in frustration at John Boehner, whom they already neither liked nor trusted.
Sellout. RINO. Wuss. You know the drill.
But I don’t see it quite that way.
Before there’s any misunderstanding (although as Popper said, misunderstanding’s gonna happen no matter how you try to head it off), let me say I’m not a Boehner fan. He’s uninspiring, seems naive, and exhibits nothing especially superior in either the brains or the rhetoric or the spine department.
But I don’t think he’s dumb, nor do I think he’s all that naive. It’s been my observation over time that people don’t get to be head of a party (either party) in Congress without having some smarts in at least the strategy and tactics department. Or without being somewhat good at playing political poker.
Now, Boehner may be one of the worst of recent political party leaders at that. Or he may be one of the better ones, given the not-so-great hand he’s been dealt. I don’t know; I can’t really tell because I sense that most of what goes on in Congress right now (or ever) is hidden from view. But I’m willing to at least entertain the idea that Boehner may (as this American Thinker piece by Fisher Adams claims) be playing a smarter game than is immediately apparent.
As commenter “T” (who linked to Adams’ article) wrote:
I am reminded of Henry Kissinger’s comment about foreign affairs: he said that there are always two chess games being played, the one on the table that everyone watches and a second game under the table that no one sees. Could that be the case here?
Could be. Fervently hope so, anyway. Because the alternative is pretty grim.
Boehner has a rather interesting history that at least indicates the possibility of a considerable amount more toughness than is apparent on the surface, as well as more devotion to conservative principles than many people credit him with. For example, he had a hardscrabble childhood and young manhood and managed to work his way up from it:
[Boehner] grew up in modest circumstances, having shared one bathroom with his eleven siblings in a two-bedroom house in Cincinnati. His parents slept on a pull-out couch. He started working at his family’s bar at age 8, a business founded by their grandfather Andy Boehner in 1938…All but two of his siblings still live within a few miles of each other; two are unemployed and most of the others have blue-collar jobs.
Boehner attended Cincinnati’s Moeller High School and was a linebacker on the school’s football team, where he was coached by future Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust…[Boehner was] the first person in his family to attend college, taking seven years as he held several jobs to pay for his education.
If Boehner’s a RINO now, he certainly wasn’t at the outset. Or, if he was a RINO even back then, he certainly managed to keep it pretty quiet:
Boehner, along with Newt Gingrich and several other Republican lawmakers, was one of the engineers of the Contract with America in 1994 that politically helped Republicans during the 1994 congressional elections during which they won the majority in Congress for the first time in four decades.
By 1997, when Gingrich was perceived by the others as a political liability, Boehner was also one of a group of Republicans that tried to get Gingrich to resign as Speaker. But when Boehner ran for Majority Leader in 2006, he “campaigned as a reform candidate who wanted to reform the so-called ‘earmark’ process and rein in government spending.” Of course, because Republicans lost in the House in 2006, he was demoted to Minority Leader and it wasn’t until 2010 that he got to be Speaker.
For the most part, Boehner’s political positions have been conservative. So if he’s actually a RINO, he’s a very odd one indeed. What he is, however, is a guy who’s been in Congress and in some position of party power for a long, long time, which would officially make him an “establishment Republican.”
As for naivete, there’s very good evidence that Boehner knows at least some of what he’s up against in Obama and Pelosi, et al. He may not know exactly what to do about it, given that the Senate is in Democratic hands. But he knows the intent of today’s Democratic leaders:
House Speaker John Boehner told a group of Republicans the day after President Barack Obama’s [2012] inaugural ceremony that the president’s focus was to “annihilate the Republican Party.”
In remarks to Republicans attending a closed luncheon sponsored by the Ripon Society, Boehner pointed to the president’s speech as evidence Obama recognizes he can’t achieve his agenda because of the GOP-led House of Representatives.
“Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans. So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party,” the House speaker said.
Boehner underlined his point, adding, “And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal ”“ to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”
My only disagreement with what he says would be that it’s not merely “the Republican Party” they want to “annihilate.” It’s the whole idea of small government and conservatism which they wish to discredit and demonize. They are well on their way to doing so, with the help of a compliant MSM, and unfortunately events such as the shutdown and the debt ceiling negotiations have the paradoxical effect of helping them in that endeavor with a large segment of the American public.
Republicans face a dilemma. The Congressional elections of 2014 are of the utmost importance. They have a chance to take the Senate (although even if they manage to do so—and to keep the House, which they must also do—Obama will retain veto power). But the conservative wing of the Republican Party is clamoring (and understandably so) for more action now, and threatening to defect if more isn’t done to stop the Democrats in their tracks. Boehner is in the position of having to weigh approaches that could backfire, knowing he will be reviled if he fails, and knowing it is very late in the day and the stakes are incredibly high.
But that’s the role he asked for.
So, now that it’s about three and a half months since those words were first written, what would I add? That it may be that Boehner’s most salient characteristic is personal ambition, and that he’s more interested in saving the “Republican Party” than saving its supposed principles, that of conservatism. And it is likely that those principles of the Republican Party are not especially conservative at all.
But in terms of the current immigration battle in Congress, aren’t at least some of the interests of the Republican Party as a whole and conservatives as a whole one and the same? Not that there isn’t a conflict—we can assume that the big donors are more in favor of caving on immigration than holding firm, and that’s certainly a large conflict. But if the Republicans vote for a law that multiplies the demographic advantages for the Democrats in a way that will “annihilate” the Republican Party anyway, it doesn’t seem like a self-serving move, much less a good one in principle.
Perhaps the best move would be to placate the donors by pretending to cave to the Democrats on immigration, but pulling away from passing a bill at the last minute? So Republicans such as Boehner can say to the donors, “at least I tried”? Or perhaps it’s the other way around and they’ve pretended to placate the conservatives but in the end will do what the donors want. But both the withdrawal of donor funds and the act of giving many millions of potential Democratic voters a way into the system threaten Boehner and his fellows, because who’s going to be donating a lot of money to them when they’re no longer in power? Yes, they may be getting cushy jobs in the private sector as a result, and that could be a sufficient motivator. But somehow I don’t think that money with a loss of political power is what they’re after, although it may be what they’d be willing to settle for.
Politics is a dirty business. Even those who start out clean (and I have no idea whether Boehner was one of them) have to fight to stay clean, and many aren’t interested in that fight.
And if one wants the Republican Party to end up in the dustbin, then just go with this whole immigration reform thing.
Cornhead:
And you think the conservative party won’t end up in that same dustbin if that happens? I think it will sign conservatives’ death warrant, too. I realize conservatives are hoping for a backlash and a turn to conservatism, and that’s possible, but I think it’s a long, long, longshot. And the demographics will be more and more against it.
No, conservatives who say “a pox on both your houses” to both Democrats and Republicans are hurting themselves, too, IMHO. This is a real dilemma.
Something usually overlooked is that Boehner is a Catholic, and, as such, may be personally very much interested in doing immigration reform. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, after all, is one of the largest forces behind it.
I didn’t know, for instance, that it was Boehner and Ted Kennedy who were responsible for the No Child Left Behind Act, also not especially beloved by conservatives:
I think Ann might be on to something with Boehner’s Catholicism, at least on that issue.
From the link provided; “According to the Washington Post: “From illegal immigration to sanctions on China to an overhaul of the pension system, Boehner, as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, took ardently pro-business positions that were contrary to those of many in his party.”
Neoneocon,
The other night Chris Stirewalt appeared on The Kelly File and made some comments regarding the possible immigration bill that speak to your concerns. Stirewalt pointed out that, in his opinion, there was no way any immigration bill was going to pass congress this year. His point that by trying to look active on immigration the Republican party will placate donors, keep money flowing and to some extent disarm the leftist enemy. To rephrase, he essentially was saying that it was a treading water position without a policy downside at the moment.
I’m just repeating from memory here, so I neither agree nor disagree with him, but Stirewalt’s thoughts seem to be in consort with your own thoughts above.
T:
That’s certainly interesting. I hadn’t seen that interview.
This is a real dilemma.
The Tea Parties of SC seem to be gearing up to instate a team and force the GOP back on the primaries, choosing their own candidates instead of allowing their candidates to be chosen by establishment Repubs.
As for the house leaders playing chicken with the Left, they’d best becareful of enemy action. Because in war, the enemy gets to have their say and battle plans usually don’t go as intended. The House may not get a choice about pulling back, once the LEft makes their move behind the scenes.
Regarding The placated donors I mentioned in the comment above: Stirewalt identified them as business donors who favor immigration reform because amnesty/illiegal immigration provide them with a pool of low-cost labor. If correct, this would also agree with the generic Republican being a big-govt Business party as opposed to a Democrat big-govt social welfare party.
Neo: I wasn’t precise enough in my language. That bill will mean not only the death of the Republican Party but also the conservative movement in this country.
I also think the USA as a country could be in jeopardy in 50 years.
Last Thursday Mark Levin read from a speech from former CO governor Dick Lamm on this topic.
He also interviewed Victor Davis Hanson on this topic. VDH wrote Mexifornia and he lives at ground zero. VDH’s book is great. I tried to find this Levin radio interview but no success.
Ann.
The Speaker went to Xavier and I went to Creighton. Both Jesuit schools. The Jesuits try to teach students how to think; not what to think.
So went Catholic leaders came out in favor of that bill, I flipped out.
Rule 1 for the Catholic Church should be to stay *out* of politics. Stick to religion. Getting into politics damages its credibility.
The whole sex abuse crime scandal has damaged the Church’s credibility enormously.
And how did it continue? The dopes at the top did not fire the criminals once they found out!
It is a *crime* (and a sin) to have sex with children!
How could they be so, so stupid?
So I am not inclined to give their opinion on this political issue any weight as they have no credibility outside of religion.
It is pretty well-known the Catholic Church has been active in politics for ~ 1500 years. Sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Thus the ambassadors to the Vatican. You want to reverse 1500 years? Hell, let’s just reverse the past 100 Progressive years.
As for Boehner-Cantor-Ryan, I am and have been very disillusioned. We are once again on the outside, looking in: Fools v. self-serving Knaves. But wait; Ryan is so, so smart…any one ever say that about baraq?
I am really confused as to why it is so hard to stand firmly for the rule of law when one’s post in the House is assured. And if it isn’t assured, so effing what?
It was then-Senator John Breaux (D-LA) who said, “I can’t be bought, but I can sure be rented.”
“But in terms of the current immigration battle in Congress, aren’t at least some of the interests of the Republican Party as a whole and conservatives as a whole one and the same?”
Therein lies the source of the base’s frustration: how can the leadership be so blind as to not see the destructive nature of this issue? Can’t they see how this will lead to disaster?
The answer is, “who says they’re out for the best interests of the country, party or individual voter?”
Anyway, I’m reverting to my official position of psychoanalytic agnosticism: I can’t know their intent, I can only know their results. I don’t employ them for failure; I expect success. If they can’t deliver, it’s time for them to “spend some quality time with their family.”
“I also think the USA as a country could be in jeopardy in 50 years.”
No, less than 20 years. Legal immigration alone is skewing the electorate heavily toward the left. Not accidental of course.
“It is a *crime* (and a sin) to have sex with children! How could they be so, so stupid?”
I don’t think it was a case of stupidity at all but of dogma and doctrine. I strongly suspect that by the time that the Catholic hierarchy realized (and for some, could no longer pretend otherwise) how widespread and deep that the pedophilia went, the hierarchy feared that the very survival of the Catholic Church might well be at stake.
That mind set led to susceptibility to the argument that literally billions of souls would be lost (per Catholic doctrine) if the Church was lost. Thus, the argument that carried the day was that Satan had to be allowed his victims in order to save billions more. I don’t doubt that there was much agonizing over what they believed to be the choice they faced.
Despite the Catholic church’s many flaws, I suspect that most in the priesthood overall really believe in its doctrine and dogma. They really do believe that, in the afterlife, our souls will be weighed ‘in the balance’ and that eternity is literally the stakes at risk.
It’s irrelevant whether that is so, what’s relevant in understanding their motivations and resultant behavior is what they believe to be true.
The whole sex abuse crime scandal has damaged the Church’s credibility enormously.
You were unaware that most of it came from Leftist infiltrators, right? You were, weren’t you.
Then there’s also the persistent rumor that Boehner is being blackmailed. We can’t discount that possibility. It’s the Chicago way.
Whether that’s the case or not, both Boehner and McConnell disgust me. They are not leaders for the perilous times in which we find ourselves. They are cowardly, craven men who merely wish to have a seat at the table of power, and the opportunity to dispense spoils to their cronies. We never hear them stand up for America’s founding principles, or for free-market capitalism.
With the universal franchise and nearly half of the population on government assistance, I really believe that we are past the point of fixing this by political means.
“But if the Republicans vote for a law that multiplies the demographic advantages for the Democrats in a way that will “annihilate” the Republican Party anyway, it doesn’t seem like a self-serving move, much less a good one in principle.”
This assumes that politicians have a long view of things (as they ought to) instead of a short-term view. The long term is about what’s good for the country. The short term can either be about what’s good for the country (wars are made up of individual battles, after all) or what’s good for the politician.
How many politicians voted for increases in social programs that they knew couldn’t be sustained? How many Republican governors increased Medicaid in order to get “free money?” The list of short-sighted politicians (of both parties) is quite long.
So if Boehner calculates that it will take 10 years for immigration reform to tip the scales, who says he’s not OK with that? He’ll be gone by then, so it’s not his problem.
And as horrific and self-serving as that sounds, we all know there are people like that in the world.
Therein lies the source of the base’s frustration: how can the leadership be so blind as to not see the destructive nature of this issue? Can’t they see how this will lead to disaster?
To be fair, most of the base American patriots didn’t see jack in 2008 or before, when it came to the Leftist alliance or their founding member, the Democrat party.
They still thought it was politics as usual, that the other party was some loyal dissidents and opposition members that were patriotic. How dare they call into question the patriotism of Americans based on politics!
By 2008, all the necessary ingredients and data were available open source to make a determination that civil war would be inevitable within the next 20 to 50 years. Yet how many people, at the base, realized this?
They couldn’t realize it, they can’t see what they can’t see. They don’t know, what they don’t know. As for Republican leaders, they see what they want to see. They have no excuses comparable to what people had in 2008 or 2007.
As far as the Catholic Church and the sex abuse scandal goes, there are a lot of misconceptions.
First of all, until the mid-80s, child abuse and/or sexual exploitation of adults by figures of authority (be they teachers, professors, doctors, priests, ministers of other faiths, scout leaders, or therapists) was poorly understood and most of the time winked at. It was only in the 80s that a furor began about the degree and extent of all those things (a good example is therapists and/or psychiatrists who had sexual relations with patients). Until then, there was a lot of ignoring of the problem across the board, both by the researchers and by the institutions involved, although there was some acknowledgement that these things sometimes happened.
Before that, and even for a while afterward, the Catholic Church (along with all those professions and institutions) had a tendency to believe the accused rather than the accuser, especially if the latter was a child. What’s more, many in the Church held the sincere belief that prayer could help the offender stop. So priests who were felt to be guilty were often removed temporarily, sent for spiritual counseling, and then when thought to be better, sent to another assignment.
Because of the nature of pedophilia and sexual abuse, this was not going to work. But that was not as well known as it is today. Later on, coverups probably occurred for other reasons. But the older offenses were covered up at least in part for this reason rather than complete callousness to the problem.
What’s more, there is not evidence that sexual abuse is any more common by priests than by other clergy. I’ve read many studies that indicate that, although I don’t have time to locate any but this article at the moment. Abuse by clergy, teachers, etc., is both a crime of opportunity and proclivity. Jobs that feature working with children draw a certain percentage of people who are inclined to abuse children.
The Catholic Church has a duty to have a zero tolerance for child abuse. But it wasn’t always understood as well as it is now that that is the way to go. This doesn’t excuse either the Church or the abusive priests, of course.
Hey. You just thread-jacked your own post.
Matt_SE:
Well, it was already sort of thread-jacked, wasn’t it?
Somebody needs to ask why teacher unions and Hollywood actors aren’t getting sued for child and teen molestation at equal rates.
We’re supposed to believe they are more disciplined and purer?
The Catholics did what most people here did when confronted with the Leftists in their midst. They didn’t get an axe and chop off their neighbor’s head to punish them for acting out. They tried counseling and community healing, to go along and get along. They pretended their fellow comrades were fellow human beings, fellow countrymen, fellow men of the cloth and faith, and tried to heal them or just let free will reign supreme.
That worked about as well for the Catholic Church fighting off an infestation of Leftist/Communist infiltrators at the higher levels of their hierarchy, as it did for patriotic Americans, right here, right now.
Those that didn’t get an axe and chop off the head of their lovely Leftist neighbors, can’t say too much about the Catholic Church’s lenient behavior. They made the same decision normal people did in the Church.
The Marxist infiltrators that sent a bunch of people to Catholic priest schools that graduated a few thousand Marxist lights, had a hammer and anvil strategy.
If it became necessary, the lawsuits against Catholic Church priests could be conducted immediately to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church at a moment’s notice. The moment Soviet Russia gave the command. Since that command was never released, the gays, the homosexuals, and the weirdos just kept on accruing power like the Lavender Mafia in the Catholic hierarchy.
So either the Catholic Church’s authority would be damaged if they tried to deal with the problem in house and naturally fail because the Communists already knew which priests were guilty, or the Catholic Church could begin self destructing their priesthood and destroying their own authority that way by recalling anyone accused of child molestation, whether it’s a true case or not. Like the feminists say, even false accusations of rape will “teach” males about gender role victimization, in the correct thought and pc factor.
The Catholic Church was already strategically defeated when they missed the infiltration and subsequent hierarchy jacking. Because most of these accusations of rape and molestation were forwarded to the upper archbishops. Which were Leftists or sympathetic to gay, lesbian, whatever causes. Intentionally put there. So the upper upper hierarchies of the Pope at the Vatican generally never saw the results of the probes and the personnel management at the more local levels, because the Catholic hierarchy was supposed to deal with that at a more local level. But that’s like saying teacher’s unions and the MPAA for Hollywood deals with problems at a local level. They don’t deal with them so much as create the problems.
So the Left had several lawyers ready and waiting to get rich off the lawsuits. Even if it failed to get many guilty pleas, the lawyer faction would still benefit.
If the Church did as people wanted them to do, the Church would have self destructed as trust in their own priesthood would be denied by the Pope and upper archbishops. No bishop would trust their archbishop. No archbishop their Pope. No priest will trust their bishops. And no member of a church would trust their Priest, not when even the mere mention of misconduct would have them stripped of authority and titles.
Either way, strategic Leftist operations will have succeeded one way or another.
Sorry if I started a thread-jack by bringing up Boehner’s Catholicism. I mentioned it only to make the point that perhaps his actions re immigration reform are not due to craven motives or sheer stupidity, but that he may actually think it’s the right, the moral thing to do. And I highlighted his work with Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind Act to show he’s done non-conservative social policy stuff before.
I am a lawyer and used to do insurance defense.
The lawsuits were about the money.
And it was a small number of priests.
No excuse – at all – for the bishops. They should have fired the offenders right away. (And now they claim insight and good judgment on immigration. Right.)
And at the end the cases were so old that the Church and insurance companies were probably just handing out money.
A fat hog was found and he was cut up.
And I highlighted his work with Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind Act to show he’s done non-conservative social policy stuff before.
I think that mostly served to convince some of us that he has been corrupted, not that he’s a social conservative. Although your mileage may differ.
A fat hog was found and he was cut up.
The fat hog was already set up by the Left. The Left didn’t go to the extent of infiltrating the FDR admin (or regime) and leave other powerful organizations alone, like 1st wave feminism, unions, immigration lobbyists, black civil rights movement, etc.
While it was unfortunate the Catholics lost face and around 3 billion in church funding to the lawyers (who pay dues to the Leftists), pretending like they were just dealing with a domestic issue is not looking at the real nature of the casualties. And it’s the same mistake they made before.
It’s not domestic problems. It’s not unintentional mistakes. It’s intentional. It’s designed. It’s supported internally and externally by agents loyal to an enemy alliance.
No excuse — at all — for the bishops. They should have fired the offenders right away.
Have you fired Obama and Eric Holder yet?
No? Why not?
Enemy action isn’t so easy to defeat as you think.
What about the teachers’ unions, have you fired them yet?
What about AFL CIO labor unions, have you fired them?
Chris Dodd of the MPAA, have you fired him for looting the housing bubble he got rich off of? Fired him yet? No? Why?
Do not underestimate the power of the Leftist alliance. Whether people believe me or not is meaningless. The Left will convince you soon enough.
Thank you Neo and Ysmaker for sticking up for the Catholics, sticking up for truth.
I don’t think it’s the MSM that’s doing the greatest harm to the Republicans. The media, after all, are being undermined steadily by the internet. Fewer and fewer people watch TV news or subscribe to newspapers, and those who still do watch TV do so on cable, where greater competition has left the field more balanced.
No, I think the main problem with the Republicans is their inability so far (and/or uninterest in doing it) to come up with creative ways to persuade. There are no ads only arguing for conservatism– it’s all short-term candidate stuff. There are few if any TV shows in which the underlying theme is personal change to who you need to be, adaptation, and then earning a good situation instead of whining until bleeding hearts increase government power and mandate the situation.
Coke and Pepsi know that you start losing the power of your brand if you don’t advertise. In my view, the Republicans have been backburnering this work, and this has done them more damage.
Haha, sticking up for Catholics. That’s rich.
W, as in Waitforit, now, you are in no position to say such a thing.
Just a few days ago W wrote:
waitforit Says:
January 29th, 2014 at 10:48 pm
CBDenver stupidly asks, “Would Churchill have any resonance today?”
I don’t have patience for stupid stupidity. Can you not listen? He’s not Alexander the Great?
Num nuts. Dumber than a bag of hammers. Are you kidding me? Listen to his speeches, dorkbomb. Or read them. Would you say the make the allegation against MLK?
Hey. Learn something about the intolerance against former ages. Here’s something by Scalia. Read it. Learn it. Use it.
“That system [our system, dorkbomb] is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution.”
This ain’t about Catholics.