I’m willing to stipulate that Speaker John Boehner has to try to preside over an insane asylum better known as the House Republican Caucus, but I still had to wonder if our friend Jonathan Bernstein had been body-snatched when I saw that he wrote that John Boehner not only has done a good job considering his restraints, but he, Tip O’Neill, and Nancy Pelosi belong in a select group of effective Speakers in the Modern House.
Bernstein doesn’t explain what Boehner has done more effectively than Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Tom Foley, Jim Wright, Carl Albert, John McCormack or Sam Rayburn. Maybe Bernstein is limiting the “modern House” to post-Reagan rather than post-war. I don’t know.
All Bernstein really says by way of praise is that he thinks Boehner will keep his job and that under his leadership the GOP will “achieve as much as they can, given the severe constraints of divided government and the Republican conference.”
I guess Newt Gingrich lost his job, but didn’t he also accomplish a lot more than John Boehner has accomplished? Exactly what has Boehner accomplished as Speaker? He paid our bills after our credit was downgraded? How many times did Dennis Hastert introduce bills and then have to pull them from the floor for lack of support? How many times did Jim Wright break down in tears and lead his caucus in the Serenity Prayer because he was so ineffective and lacking in influence?
Yes, of course, Boehner has a difficult caucus. But what other leader would cause a government shutdown just to show his own party the folly of their ways and then go on The Tonight Show and call it “a very predictable disaster”? Resignation is a better option than that kind of leadership.
Part of the reason John Boehner is considered to be bad at his job is that his whip team has been terrible at counting votes. This led Brother Benen to term Boehner’s then-Number Three, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the “the least effective Whip in recent memory – helping create a Congress that’s passed fewer bills than any in generations…”
Yes, Benen acknowledged the McCarthy’s job was difficult, perhaps impossible, because of the radicalism of his caucus. But failure to round up votes is different from an inability to count them. Boehner’s team hasn’t just been stymied by their inability to lead; they have been repeatedly surprised by their inability to lead.
If you can’t count votes, can’t win votes, can’t make promises you can keep, can’t make compromises that will stick, and can’t deliver any legislation, they how in the hell can you be considered to be good at your job? The final nail in the coffin is that Boehner hasn’t done what any honorable leader would do when it became obvious that he couldn’t lead his party. He ought to have resigned for two reasons. First, because he doesn’t have the confidence of his own party and, second, because he doesn’t actually think a lot of what his party is doing is right.
Rachel Maddow has a periodic segment called “John Boehner is Terrible at his Job.” For all the reasons you list. I have no idea what Bernstein was thinking.
Maddow was the first person to point out how bad Orange Julius is at his job.
When the plan is to shut down the government to make the Kenyan Muslim Socialist look like a failure, shutting down the government without threatening loss of the House majority is a major accomplishment.
There are a lot of people hurting and have no way of changing government policy because of Boehner’s actions.
To look like a drunken nitwit while doing it causes the Wall Street media to give Boehner extra points.
The sabotage has worked perfectly and still works. Look at your own predictions for the House.
And Boehner dodges the blame every time; it’s those uncontrollable Tea Party crazies.
Remember that Tip O’Neill was Speaker contra the Reagan Revolution and Nancy Pelosi was Speaker contra the “permanent Republican majority”. And Boehner has mad things worse during the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, which in 2008 most folks thought dramatically advantaged the Democrats.
Now, either Boehner is as good a Bernstein says or the Congressional Democrats (especially in the House) are as bad as I say. Pick one.
I’ll take “All of the Above” with an added Dishonorable Mention for the DCCC.
It depends on whether you place priority on the oath he took as an elected congressman to serve the nation, or instead on catering to to his party and the crooks, wingbats and contributors how put him in office.
Clearly he doesn’t take the “run the government responsibly” part of his job very seriously.
But to the journalist who cover politics as if it belongs on the sports page he has done a pretty decent job at keeping his job
Then again, if his job is to paralyze the government, he’s pretty good at that. Boehner himself is the one who said he should be judged by how many laws he repeals. Brother Benen has pointed out a few times that he hasn’t done too well at that, either, but that may not be so terrible from the Norquistian point of view. You may not have drowned the beast yet, but at least you aren’t letting it out of the tub.
Maybe he’s supposed to fail for the Norquistian reasons some are suggesting, but I don’t think anybody’s told him about it, because he’s not taking pride in his work; his chronic rage and self-pity are pretty visible.
He’s the plain blog about politics guy right? If so he’s long been committed to the idea that the GOPs actions are basically politics as usual.
Boehner is an old school Republican – a true grifter, rather than a true believer.
He’s still Speaker, with his #3 position in all of the US government.
He’s still picking up extra cash as Speaker.
He’s still going to dominate anyone who runs against him.
In essence, Boehner is doing great representing Boehner.
Everything else is theatre.