I must admit that I didn’t see this coming, but who can blame him?
Speaker John Boehner plans to resign from Congress in late October, he told member of his conference Friday morning in a closed door meeting, according to multiple reports emerging from the meeting room.
Boehner is second in line to the presidency, after Vice President Joe Biden. He was first elected to Congress in 1990. He has served as speaker since Republicans took control of the House in 2011.
Boehner was meeting with his conference to discuss plans to avert a government shutdown, looming next week. The speaker was under enormous pressure to keep the government open and satisfy conservative members of the conference who were refusing to vote for any bill that would provide funds for Planned Parenthood.
The odds have just increased that there will be another government shutdown. Ted Cruz will insist.
It may be time to revive my America Held Hostage series and its image:
Boner’s pulling out of Congress has given me an earworm. This one’s for the Cryin’ Speaker:
Interesting development. When I first heard a snippet of this (one of the local morning news anchors read the New York Times headline off his phone), I thought Boehner had finally had enough of being the ringmaster for the House circus. Then I thought about the palace coup rumblings that have re-surfaced, and that Boehner decided to jump before he was pushed. Then I thought that maybe his health has broken. He doesn’t appear to take real good care of himself, and practically every profile of Boehner mentions his drinking and smoking.
Someone on another board mentioned that some vestigial remnant of a conscience was tweaked in Boehner by the Pope’s address to Congress yesterday. I’d rate that as very unlikely.
I would think that anyone versed in Republican leadership of the House (Gingrich, Livingston, Hastert, etc., etc.) would have first assumed that there’s a ton of legal/hypocritical shit going to land on his head soon, and that the looniest members of the House are behind it all. In his case, I don’t think that’s happening. There have been no leaks to the press yet of wrongdoing or exceptionally bad behavior.
However, he’s got nothing to show for his tenure, except general abuse from his own caucus. For most politicians, that would be incentive to stay on, to get one thing done for his legacy. And, the announcement was made by his aides, not him, so I’m betting when he steps down, there will be something dramatic. I’m guessing alcoholic dementia, described as early Alzheimer’s. His inexplicable tendency to burst into tears in public for little reason has been an ongoing trait and it might have a pathological source. Maybe he’s just gotten an official diagnosis. Or his liver is shot, and he’s stepping down to concentrate on finding a replacement. There might be more yellow in that orange skin lately. Either way, I’m betting the reasons are medical in origin.
Heard this on the radio driving back from your neck of the woods — ah, civilization, or at least a pleasant time with a good friend — grabbed a couple bottles of wine at Martin’s, and went to the NOMA…
Singing Uncle Remus? Hmmm…that was…odd.
Boehner’s someone who I never liked, but found difficult to hate, if only because he seemed ever so slightly less buckfuck insane than his caucus. And yes, that’s setting the bar so low it’s subterranean. But I always thought of him as the kind of person who…maybe it wouldn’t be that fun to work for him, but he’d be too busy playing golf to pay much attention.
Well, I won’t miss him, but neither do I expect his successor to be any better…I think I heard McCarthy on NPR whining and of course lying about Planned Parenthood “trafficking in baby parts.” And I guess Scalise gets bumped up as well…