Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. The Vikings are green with envy.
Nothing signals a shift to a bold, decisive new direction like re-electing the same weasels who led us down the path we’re on now.
“But the GOP majority got bigger, the Speaker must be doing something right.” No, dummy, you have more Conservative Republicans elected DESPITE the Speaker sabotaging conservatives at every opportunity. The grassroots voters are fed up with Obama AND with spineless Republicans who hand the Democrats a free pass on spending for all of 2015 and then dither and quibble about maybe suing the President over immigration, when Congressional Republicans ought to be using every tactic, trick and tool in the box to rein the President in and shut him down.
We got a surge of Republicans elected in 1992 when Newt Gingrich campaigned on the Contract With America. What we don’t have today is a formal set of ideas to enact and somebody willing to implement them.
Joe Doakes
The good news? It was the most hotly contested speaker racing over 100 years.
The bad news? Voters don’t keep track of history.
Perhaps worse still? I’m starting not to really care about what the reasons and excuses are anymore.
You really need to get out of the right wing echo chamber once in a while. The fantasy world you’re living in is quite amusing. The adults are back, even Tom Emmer voted for Speaker Boehner.
“Adults” like John Boehner, Arne Carlson, Vin Weber, Dave Durenburger, Mitch McConnell . . . you know, responsible people who will steer the car off the cliff, yes; but will do it more slowly, a few bucks cheaper and with better New York Times reviews.
With “adults” like them in the GOP, who needs Democrats?
The real issue is that the if conservatives in the house wanted a better speaker, they should have started that work the second week of November, meeting newly elected representatives and re-elected ones to make the case that it was time for a new speaker. Too little, done too late.
WADR to Mitch, I’m sick of hearing how we need to play the long game, compromise to move forward. B effing S. We have the largest majority in DC we’ve had for decades. We are pitted against a President who wishes he had Nixon’s approval ratings.
This is the time, and these are the people.
Emmer screwed the pooch, big time, and I hope the good people of the 6th let him know he’s skating on ice so thin Saint Paul’s outdoor refrigeration system can’t help him.
Dr. Strangelove is right, the adults are all assembled; send his brain dead school-yard posse to the basement.
Loren, you make the only reasonable excuse there is.
WADR to Mitch, I’m sick of hearing how we need to play the long game, compromise to move forward. B effing S.
I don’t disagree.
I can forgive a compromise on a Speaker vote when, let’s be honest, there was no viable alternative.
But if they f*** up on, say, Keystone? Defunding OCare? Obama’s appellate bench-packing?
No mercy then.
Sounds like Boehner has learned a thing or two from working with Obama on how to handle people who disagree with him. And this just echoes Loren’s point on how disorganized Boehner’s opponents were.
http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2015/01/07/house-gop-tries-to-regroup-after-divisive-speaker-vote-n1939834
Loren identified the issue. If you want to kill the king, you’d damned well better have a plan for how you’re going to do it. Having Louis Gohmert mumble something about his availability a day or two before the vote isn’t a plan.
The real issue is that the if conservatives in the house wanted a better speaker, they should have started that work the second week of November, meeting newly elected representatives and re-elected ones to make the case that it was time for a new speaker. Too little, done too late.
The other piece is you have to have someone credible who can offer for a plan to show how s/he would get better results as Speaker than Boehner did. I think the fact that no one did so suggests that while Boehner does deserve *some* of the criticism he’s received, a lot of it is just people who don’t understand the limits of what can actually be accomplished when (a) the biggest issues are on autopilot and can’t be solved through gridlock and (b) Obama will still be President for two more years. No one wants to take the job and then have to explain why it is that they couldn’t do any better than Boehner.