The Onion had a point-counterpoint exchange with John Boehner debating himself over the shutdown and his role in it. In the first part, Boehner recites the official line, saying the same things he has been saying at his public appearances.
In the second, he releases his innermost thoughts and says things like this:
Help me. Please, God, help me. I’ve lost control and I need help.
The far right members of my party are insane. I don’t know what they’re thinking, and I don’t want to know because it would be too horrifying. I’ve tried to explain it to them over and over and they don’t listen to me. They don’t listen to anybody.
…I hate them. I hate all of them. And yet I also fear them.
I want to admit something: I’ve cried in my office every day for the last month. During this shutdown I’ve sat there, panicked and alone, scared to death about the next thing they’ll make me do. When they knock on my door, my heart stops. What are they going to make me say next? How are they going to force me to embarrass myself next?
The sad thing is that this parody side of the Boehner self-debate, while funny, is more likely to be an accurate reflection of Boehner’s state of mind than the seemingly straightforward side.
His performance has been one of utter spinelessness, of a man so addicted to the rush of being someone sorta powerfulish that he is willing to let the country go to wrack and ruin rather than risk giving up the Speakership. He’s said it explicitly, that he is acting to at least some extent out of a desire to not lose that position. He’s betrayed his oath of office, and allowed the continuation of a ridiculously unconstitutional hostage-taking (the 14th, I’m meaning), and all so he doesn’t have to give up the corner office. It’s a repellent performance, and I’m speaking as someone outside the country. The US will be better governed when this preening jellyfish is sent packing.
@ ^ CaitieCat : Scary thought tho’ -- what if the person who replaces him is even worse?
(Yes, I know that seems rather hard to imagine at times.)
I don’t think that’s likely, because the only way it could be worse is if the Speaker were actually one of the Tea Partiers himself (cause we all know it’s not likely to be a woman if it’s the TP), and I don’t see a TP type having the votes to become Speaker.
If instead the Speaker were one of the moderate Repubs from a safe seat, one of the fiscally conservative / socially don’t-give-a-monkey’s types, I think they’d be more likely to ditch the so-called “Hastert rule”, under which the GOP Speaker won’t allow a vote on a bill unless it can pass with only GOP votes. Ditching that “rule” (because it’s not actually a rule, just an internal practice of the GOP) would pull the cork on the horridly constipated lower House, and allow some actual governing to be done. Throw in a reform of the filibuster which is so desperately needed, and the USans might actually have something vaguely resembling the functionality that mighty democracies like Afghanistan and Libya can. Hell, in time, it could almost become functional.
On another note, isn’t it an interesting statement on US hegemony that we, an Australian and a Canadian, should be discussing the finer details of their political system with a reasonable degree of knowledge? Sigh.
“someone sorta powerfulish”
The Speaker of the House is second in the line of Presidential succession. So if they can somehow get Obama impeached and convicted, and Biden resigns or trips over a rake or something quickly enough, please say hello to President Boehner.