You Insisted on Ugly

It isn’t necessary to actually leak the email correspondence between Harry Reid and John Boehner’s staffs in order to humiliate Boehner. It is sufficient to merely threaten to do so. I understand the anger Democrats are feeling, and I guess we should expect them to eventually start violating long-standing norms about acceptable behavior when confronted with a Republican Party that has no respect for long-standing norms of acceptable behavior.

A lot of people grew accustomed to the Democrats making accommodations to keep the government functioning, but they appear to have reached their bottom line. We are in the first year of the president’s second term, and we have to break the back of crises governance now or we’ll be stuck with it for the next three and a half years. What this means is that historical norms and niceties are no longer the top Democratic priority. Victory is now the top priority, and that means that Boehner should expect to be ducking 95mph fastballs aimed directly at his head.

Update [2013-10-1 11:56:11 by BooMan]: They leaked the emails.

10 Comments

TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 11:21 am

Interesting article. The only quoted person is Boehner’s staffer’s statement. Leads me to believe that this is Boehner’s pre-emptive move to blame Reid for any e-mails leaked by Republican staffer PO’d at being thrown under the bus on health care.

TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 11:32 am

John Bresnahan, Politico: Government shutdown: John Boehner’s private fight for Hill health subsidies

Boehner’s staff pushing the “kinder, friendlier” Boehner side of the story instead of the “repeal forever” Boehner, which was Rollcall’s spin.

Would love to hear the GOP House staff conversations right now.

mainsailset on October 1, 2013 at 11:41 am

Boehner is definitely banking on his Sybil side to navigate his way. She had, what? 9 personalities?

TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 12:22 pm

Where are the leaked e-mails? Nothing in that article was not known before yesterday. There has been long negotiation over the issue of Congressional staff.

The Rollcall and Politico articles to me seem to be Boehner’s staff talking out of both sides of their mouths in order to prevent a staff rebellion. Because it is very clear that the bosses in the GOP House caucus were very much about to throw their staff under the bus to score political points.

BooMan on October 1, 2013 at 1:31 pm

So, you knew about the discussion of phony cover stories and all that?
- TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 1:35 pm
  
  Reading between the line and looking at the identified sources. That’s all. Nothing definitive.
  
  You have the emails?
  - BooMan on October 1, 2013 at 1:53 pm
    
    No, I don’t have them. Politico has them:
    
    In mid-July, as Boehner and Reid were trying to schedule a private meeting with Obama on the super-sensitive topic, the speaker’s top aide said it was okay to use a cover story to conceal the true nature of that prospective White House gathering.
    “We can’t let it get out there that this is for [Boehner] and [Reid] to ask the President to carve us out of the requirement of Obamacare,” Sommers told David Krone, Reid’s top aide in a July 17 e-mail obtained by POLITICO.
    
    “This is a little bit more difficult because it isn’t a routine meeting, as [Nancy] Pelosi and [Mitch] McConnell won’t be there. I am even ok if it is the President hauling us down to talk about the next steps on immigration.”
    
    After Krone suggested that the White House press office might float that the Boehner-Reid-Obama meeting was on immigration, Sommers said he wasn’t concerned about what cover story was just as long as the real reason behind the meeting wasn’t disclosed.
    “I really don’t care what is is about[,] it just can’t be about what we know it is about!” Sommers told Krone.
    
    That meeting with Obama never took place.
    
    Boehner and Reid’s offices also circulated some draft legislation to fix the problem, although none was ever introduced. They considered — briefly and “not seriously,” according to the speaker’s office — making all House staffers part of the “Committee of the Whole” in order to get around the insurance-exchange requirement.
    
    Committee staffers were not required to enroll in exchanges.
    Boehner and Reid’s staffers also discussed “grandfathering” all members of Congress into the Federal Employee Benefit Health Plan, their current insurance program, so they didn’t have to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges. That idea was eventually dropped as well.
    
    Boehner’s office said the leak of private e-mails to POLITICO shows how concerned Democrats are about the matter.
    - TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 2:17 pm
      
      Now if Politico were really about exposing the e-mails, there would be links to images of them. Politico does not identify their source of the e-mails, letting Boehner’s staff accuse Democrats of being desperate. Still looks fishy to me.
      
      And is not enough of an unambiguous slam-dunk for me to post it on Facebook and claim that Boehner was trying to get Obamacare for Republican staff.
      
      IMO another silly Village exercise. The protest at the World War II monument is more newsworthy. And apparently there is a call for a standing protest on the National Mall. Just standing and staring down the Capitol I guess until the shutdown is over. That’s something for a few hundred thousand furloughed folks and their supporters to do.
    - yastreblyansky on October 1, 2013 at 8:14 pm
      
      Hilarious to me, though, if it’s true, that Boehner’s big guilty secret was that he was trying to be a little bit less of a schmuck to the staff.

MNPundit on October 1, 2013 at 1:43 pm

I’ve always thought that governing by norms/tradition/custom is a pretty out-dated way to run things.

TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 11:21 am

Interesting article. The only quoted person is Boehner’s staffer’s statement. Leads me to believe that this is Boehner’s pre-emptive move to blame Reid for any e-mails leaked by Republican staffer PO’d at being thrown under the bus on health care.
TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 11:32 am

John Bresnahan, Politico: Government shutdown: John Boehner’s private fight for Hill health subsidies

Boehner’s staff pushing the “kinder, friendlier” Boehner side of the story instead of the “repeal forever” Boehner, which was Rollcall’s spin.

Would love to hear the GOP House staff conversations right now.
mainsailset on October 1, 2013 at 11:41 am

Boehner is definitely banking on his Sybil side to navigate his way. She had, what? 9 personalities?
TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 12:22 pm

Where are the leaked e-mails? Nothing in that article was not known before yesterday. There has been long negotiation over the issue of Congressional staff.

The Rollcall and Politico articles to me seem to be Boehner’s staff talking out of both sides of their mouths in order to prevent a staff rebellion. Because it is very clear that the bosses in the GOP House caucus were very much about to throw their staff under the bus to score political points.
- BooMan on October 1, 2013 at 1:31 pm
  
  So, you knew about the discussion of phony cover stories and all that?
  - TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 1:35 pm
    
    Reading between the line and looking at the identified sources. That’s all. Nothing definitive.
    
    You have the emails?
    - BooMan on October 1, 2013 at 1:53 pm
      
      No, I don’t have them. Politico has them:
      
      In mid-July, as Boehner and Reid were trying to schedule a private meeting with Obama on the super-sensitive topic, the speaker’s top aide said it was okay to use a cover story to conceal the true nature of that prospective White House gathering.
      “We can’t let it get out there that this is for [Boehner] and [Reid] to ask the President to carve us out of the requirement of Obamacare,” Sommers told David Krone, Reid’s top aide in a July 17 e-mail obtained by POLITICO.
      
      “This is a little bit more difficult because it isn’t a routine meeting, as [Nancy] Pelosi and [Mitch] McConnell won’t be there. I am even ok if it is the President hauling us down to talk about the next steps on immigration.”
      
      After Krone suggested that the White House press office might float that the Boehner-Reid-Obama meeting was on immigration, Sommers said he wasn’t concerned about what cover story was just as long as the real reason behind the meeting wasn’t disclosed.
      “I really don’t care what is is about[,] it just can’t be about what we know it is about!” Sommers told Krone.
      
      That meeting with Obama never took place.
      
      Boehner and Reid’s offices also circulated some draft legislation to fix the problem, although none was ever introduced. They considered — briefly and “not seriously,” according to the speaker’s office — making all House staffers part of the “Committee of the Whole” in order to get around the insurance-exchange requirement.
      
      Committee staffers were not required to enroll in exchanges.
      Boehner and Reid’s staffers also discussed “grandfathering” all members of Congress into the Federal Employee Benefit Health Plan, their current insurance program, so they didn’t have to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges. That idea was eventually dropped as well.
      
      Boehner’s office said the leak of private e-mails to POLITICO shows how concerned Democrats are about the matter.
      - TarheelDem on October 1, 2013 at 2:17 pm
        
        Now if Politico were really about exposing the e-mails, there would be links to images of them. Politico does not identify their source of the e-mails, letting Boehner’s staff accuse Democrats of being desperate. Still looks fishy to me.
        
        And is not enough of an unambiguous slam-dunk for me to post it on Facebook and claim that Boehner was trying to get Obamacare for Republican staff.
        
        IMO another silly Village exercise. The protest at the World War II monument is more newsworthy. And apparently there is a call for a standing protest on the National Mall. Just standing and staring down the Capitol I guess until the shutdown is over. That’s something for a few hundred thousand furloughed folks and their supporters to do.
      - yastreblyansky on October 1, 2013 at 8:14 pm
        
        Hilarious to me, though, if it’s true, that Boehner’s big guilty secret was that he was trying to be a little bit less of a schmuck to the staff.
MNPundit on October 1, 2013 at 1:43 pm

I’ve always thought that governing by norms/tradition/custom is a pretty out-dated way to run things.

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