It’s funny because it assumes that the weeping Orange one was ever in control of anything.
Claiming that any establishment Republican is in charge of the Republican Party is a beltway in-joke that can be told over and over again. Every Conservative “leader” is just a mini-Danton living in fear of the moment when the mob turns on him or her. Perhaps this is why John is a fountain of tears.
Cheers
JPL
Wouldn’t it be nice if he shed some tears for the middle class.
different-church-lady
It’s almost as if you guys are watching pornography for the plot.
Bruce S
What’s this? The Speaker is appearing in Depends ads?
Egg Berry
I thought the Washington Post was Pravda on the Potomac?
amk
@JPL: It’s the fucking middle class that put him there by their votes or their ‘non-votes’, as the case may be.
kindness
House Repubs getting hoisted on their own petard.
Gotta love life sometimes. This time is one of ’em.
@Egg Berry: It is.
dmsilev
I wonder who that unnamed forehead behind Boehner is. It would truly be poetic if it were Eric Cantor, all set to plant yet another knife in Boehner’s back.
Worth noting, though, that today’s power dynamic of Boehner being largely a figurehead and the House Majority Leader being in tune with the fanatics is pretty close to the situation we had under Speaker Hastert (remember him?) and Majority Leader DeLay.
R'Tod
“Perhaps this is why John is a fountain of tears.”
Tiny, orange tears.
scav
Ok, I’ll throw him into the battle for TopBillingDeailyObjectOfScorn but he’s up against Piers Morgan but as it’s still only noon there’s plenty of time for hats to appear in ring. Still think Morgan will pull it off, The Orange Weeper is more merely abject and useless, a soggy House doormat.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Yeah, Hastert was the figurehead, and pretty deliberately so, as DuhLay couldn’t directly take the reigns of power, and why would he want to? Like Lord Voldemort, far more effective to be the actual power than to have the trappings of office.
Furthermore, NOT being the nominal king gives you the ability to use your powers for even greater evil.
Cantor, I do believe, is not that clever.
Mike Goetz
Aside from your linked article, Politico is concern trolling Obama and the Democrats in the fappingest frenzy I have ever seen.
Panic time in the center-right Establishment.
Dennis G.
@kindness: I think of Politico as Pravda. I tend to remember that attributing that nickname to the WP was started by wingnuts way back in the days before the internets so I’ve never used the term that way, but I can see how some could see the WP as Pravda.
The term fits Politico as everything in it is the spin of beltway gasbags, elites and wankers. And while there is a lot of that in the WP there is also some great reporting and writing that makes the WP something more than a propaganda rag.
Others will–of course–disagree, but so it goes.
Cheers
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
Cantor doesn’t seem terribly bright. He’s a good weathervane — he’s figured out which way the political winds are blowing in his party and has aligned himself accordingly. But changing the way the wind is blowing, i.e., doing actual work, I don’t think he’s got that kind of talent.
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, I think Cantor actually wants to be Speaker. Which is stupid of him, because one of the few things that keeps the GOP in power is plausible deniability of their true extremism.
I’ll note for the sake of contrast that Democrats don’t play that sort of game. While there were certainly power struggles among the leadership, once the dust settled nobody doubted that Pelosi was in charge.
PeakVT
Politico is the new Komsomolskaya Pravda. The Test Prep Daily’s role is more like Izvestia, but people know of Pravda more, so it’s been labeled Pravda on the Potomac. Instead it’s the Moonie Times that functions like the old Pravda, or has in the past.
Redhand
I certainly hope the electorate recalls this bullshit in Nov. 2012. I can’t imagine any “ordinary American” with an ounce of common sense and self-interest voting for these assholes again.
Mike Goetz
@dmsilev:
Boehner has to rise several levels to even be considered a figurehead. You have to at least pretend a figurehead has some authority, and the Repubs aren’t even bothering to do that.
And notice how McConnell is not lifting a finger to help Boehner out of this. He has disappeared completely. I think he’s had enough of being embarrassed by Orange Drink.
Villago Delenda Est
Hmmm, upon reflection, it should have been “reins” of power, but given that the GOP is the monarchist party, “reigns” might not be a bad allusion.
Maude
The House voted down the payroll tax bill. Back to square one.
jl
I don’t know how the House GOP managed it, but doesn’t seem like they are getting good press.
From news reports I heard this morning (paraphrases)
‘Boehner about face’
‘GOP Senate thought they had a compromise, angry with GOP House’
‘Boehner backs out of deal’
The next one was most recent I heard during commute, which is almost word for word:
“GOP leadership will use an odd procedure that only allows a ‘no’ vote”
Only House GOP quote I heard was a snippet of some teaparty House GOPer goofball sarcastically singing a Christmas carol.
Of course, half the reports had to end with bizarre statement that both sides were ‘politicising’, but I wonder whether people pay any attention to that. The phrase is becoming kind of like ‘uh’ (a meaningless placeholder) or ‘f*ck’ (a meaningless intensifier).
Gex
@dmsilev: The do not have one person on the bench as skilled as Nancy Smash!
@Villago Delenda Est: I like it! Reigns, that is.
Suffern ACE
@Maude: Sadly, I don’t think there is a square 1. We now get to square 2 where the pols argue with each other over who raised whose taxes and everyone forgets about the 99ers.
Robert Waldmann
The Washington Post is Pravda on the Patomac
Politico is Izvestia in DC
gnomedad
@different-church-lady:
Tag candidate alert.
Tony J
@gnomedad:
It gets better the more you think about it. As a shorthand description of Village political coverage it hath great pith.
Seconded.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Now the House Republicans demands are quite simple; they want to implement a policy that both political toxic and in practice an economic disaster. All they are doing is simply asking the Democrats to take all the blame for it.
nominus
Every now and then I’ll read an article on CNN and glance at the comments. Normally that place is a hive of mouth-breathing dumbshits, but then I read today’s article on the House’s rejection. They’re still mouth-breathing dumbshits, but by an almost 2-1 margin the comments recognize the Republican hypocrisy and intransigence. More evidence that the American people may not be stupid, but they are very very dense and slow to catch on. Repeat the behavior enough and they might actually recognize a pattern.
Anoniminous
This and the recent intensification of Teh Crazy from the GOP, ref: the PUMA robo-calls, makes me wonder what their internal polls are saying.
chrome agnomen
@dmsilev: @Redhand:
true, but what percentage of americans does that cover?
Elizabelle
@Anoniminous:
Bingo.
And see Kay’s thread, above, about Obama’s personal approval rating.
Roger Moore
@nominus:
I don’t think most Americans are dense and slow to catch on. I think they’re mostly uninterested in Washington politics so they aren’t paying careful attention. There’s a big difference between spending too much time living your life to follow Washington and being too dumb to figure out what’s happening even though you do pay attention.
Southern Beale
I can’t look at al picture of John Boehner and not think of The Warden Samuel Norton character from “Shawshank Redemption.” If they ever make a movie about him I hope Bob Gunton is still around to play the part.
Woodrowfan
@Redhand:
To quote Adlai Stevenson, yes, but we need a majority///
The Moar You Know
The brutal truth: Boenher’s a drunk, and this is the best anyone’s ever going to get out of the guy.
Thoughtcrime
Both sides do it!
GOP House & GOP Senate.
sherparick
Actually, Boehner is more like Brissot and the old class of “94” Girondists to the Tea Party Robispierres, with Eric Cantor playing the role of Fouche.
Jamie
for the umpteen millionth time, we need a better media