I love ThinkProgress but I wish they wouldn’t go there:
During a press conference earlier today, House Republican leader John Boehner was asked about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough’s accusation that “every Republican I talk to says John Boehner, by 5 or 6 o’clock at night, you can see him at bars.” When asked if there was “any truth” to that allegation, Boehner dodged the question entirely and instead argued that he’s hard at work doing fundraisers for his colleagues:
[…..]Perhaps Boehner’s attempts to highlight his hard fundraising work for fellow Republicans is an effort to keep them from speaking out about their knowledge of Boehner’s personal habits.
This kind of thing is a zero sum game, at best. If Boehner takes heat for drinking, pretty soon Dana Milbank will do a “One Too Many Beer Summits For Brewack Obombeda?” piece and we will be facing a “teachable moment” about the evils of the demon rum. Nobody wants that.
Aunt Moe
Ditto. I’ll take it a step further – Boehner’s stupid comment about ant/nuclear bomb was clearly a bumbling attempt to say ‘overkill’. I loathe the guy, but he didn’t call the Gulf oil spill an ant.
cleek
Boehner’s a blithering idiot.
maybe he goes there to hand out checks from lobbyists?
DougJ
@cleek:
Still, I don’t care if he drinks after work.
MikeJ
@DougJ: I will go further. I believe the Republicans who were criticizing him were complaining more about the hours he works than what he does with his free time.
Working long hours is a sign of inadequate planning, not industry. Too many people believe that you should be seen at your desk earlier than everyone else and later too. Those people are morons.
Third Eye Open
I think Congress would work a whole lot better if they were all required to drink during the day. I cringe for the staff that has puke-duty and would have to hold Vitter’s diapers, but it couldn’t make policy outcomes any worse…right?
danimal
Preparing now for the deluge of politician drinking habits gossip.
Three….Two….One…. Take it away, Politico!
DougJ
@Third Eye Open:
It worked for Don Draper.
Michael D.
I don’t care either. I always have a beer after work. I just don’t do it at bars.
But it might explain Boehner’s complexion. It’s not tanning. It’s drunken redface.
kid bitzer
i don’t care how much liquor boehner drinks, i just wish he’d quit chugging the copper-tone.
arguingwithsignposts
So should we start referring to congresscritters with a +n after their names?
jibeaux
I’ve got a family chockablock with Irish drunks, and that complexion is not drunken redface. The drunken redfacesis, well, red, and involves a fair number of broken capillaries. Boehner is unequivocally, indisputably, orange. Is it a bar with spray tanning in the back, maybe?
MattR
@kid bitzer: Is Boehner drinking so much because the tanning bed tax included as part of HCR kicks in today.
jl
I think that the the fact that is very unlikely that Johnny Bones makes any less sense drunk in the evening than he does sober during the day would be a more appropriate topic for a teevee national affairs news show.
I will await the Brooks column reminding us that as a culture the US needs to return to our Puritan tradition of rugged individualistic sobriety (or was it habitual semi-drunk stupor?) in order to recover our greatness.
Who cares whether he is barfly after hours? Seriously.
Edit: he looks like he has been using cheap shoe polish for his tan for years. Why has that not been a topic of conversation? As commenters above have mentioned, maybe Boehner’s apparent addiction to heavy tans, or unconventional tanning method, has affected his mind.
eemom
I’m sorry, but No-Boner is an utterly despicable individual and deserves whatever he gets — and that “ant” comment to refer to the wrecked economy was particularly despicable.
I also don’t think it’s out of bounds to point out that a frikkin PUBLIC SERVANT who is paid with my tax dollars is hitting the bars at 5 p.m
‘Sides, he really shouldn’t drink so much. He needs to hang onto every last brain cell, lest his mind devolve into even more of a vacuous wasteland than it already is.
Asshole
Mandatory morning PBTs and biweekly UA screens for all members of Congress, coming right up…
jl
High importance, vital, hyperdrive urgent petcare alert for Cole:
10 Things Your Vet Won’t Tell You:
1. Your pet isn’t “extra-fluffy” or “big-boned.”
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/10-things-your-vet-wont-tell-you-1741306/
Midnight Marauder
@Aunt Moe:
You are right, of course.
He was talking about Financial Regulation:
And I would disagree that Financial Regulation in its current, or even previous, form(s) is “overkill.”
Asshole
Seriously, why does Congress get away with no piss tests? Half the jobs in America are verboten to people who like weed or coke. Should all those people be running for Congress if they want a workplace that doesn’t give a crap what they do on their own time? (Not that I’m advocating this kind of creeping corporatist Fascism, mind you. Not in any serious sense.)
J.W. Hamner
Are we sure this is not a slam on his work ethic, instead of an implication of alcoholism?
Third Eye Open
@DougJ: I actually was thinking about a series of reality-TV shows where a camera crew followed every member of Congress around, 24/7 and then beamed it back to their districts. It would feed the ego of these people, while at the same time giving us all the entertainment and information that a regime like COPS can provide. If they put it on PPV, they might even help bring down the deficit…
Waynski
I saw him in a hotel lobby following a luncheon one day and I don’t think he waits until five or six, but neither do I some days, so I ain’t preaching. Then again he always looks like he’s had a couple so maybe I misinterpreted the way he looked. That said, I don’t think they should be commenting on that unless he gets really fucked up and does something stupid. I assume he has a driver, so DWI is unlikely to be a problem, so leave the guy alone.
MattR
@Asshole: If you want to avoid a drug test, another good profession is doctor.
joe from Lowell
This makes me like John Boehner more.
Asshole
@MattR:
Good point. The professions which are supposedly the most important are also, generally speaking, the ones that involve the least oversight of their members’ bloodstream.
Corner Stone
If drinking is the hardest tag they can stick on him then we are all in big F’ng trouble.
Eric U.
@Third Eye Open: I was going to say I’d like Boehner to start drinking in the morning. Then maybe he’d screw up and vote for some legislation that is in the favor of the bulk of his constituents instead of the rich and corporations.
Josie
I happened to be listening to that show the morning that Joe Scarborough started flogging this, and I wondered why he would do that. He brought it up out of the blue and wouldn’t shut up about it for the longest time. I wonder if he is trying to help Eric Cantor or someone else to take over Boehner’s job. Just a thought.
Cacti
Sorry, but ThinkProgress is getting into Clinton/blowjob territory with this one.
fucen tarmal
well if alcohol is the cause of the problems in washington and it would be irresponsible to speculate that it isn’t, than maybe this is good news for the marijuana decriminalization effort on a federal level…
not for nothing, but the perspective our congress and their handlers could gain by being profoundly stoned, just one night a week, would only lead to good things, at least being aware of the mass of absurdity they create….i mean these guys need a bong session like nobody’s business.
Hugin & Munin
Duh. Drug testing is only about continuing the American value of corporate ownership of the labor force. If you want time that is truely your own, join the homeless.
Spaghetti Lee
eemom is right, Boehner isn’t a private citizen, and if his drinking is impeding his job performance, it is very much my business.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone could tell if it is an impediment.
Tom Q
I agree; we’re already deep enough into personal lives. If you tolerate the intrusion because it’s someone you can’t stand, you set a precedent for it being inflicted on someone you like.
Case in point: Most people I knew cackled over the “exposing Frank Gifford’s extramarital affair” thing in the mid/late 90s, because they were happy to see Kathy Lee humilated. A year or so later, we had Lewinsky 24/7, and the same people wished they could get the genie back in the bottle.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
About a year ago, he started weeping during a speech on the floor, which seemed kind of drunky to me.
But the fact that after years of his smirking, infantile demagoguery, this is what gets attention in Washington just demonstrates (probably the fifth or sixth such demonstration this week) how bankrupt our political and media establishment is. Do we have to wait till next week for Richard Cohen’s column on how liberal nastiness (from Joe Scarborough) is driving good people (like the war-mongering bagman for Big Tobacco) out of public service? or will Fred Hiatt give him a Sunday special?
Spaghetti Lee
Also, this isn’t the first place I’ve heard this story, and I think it would be sadly ironic if “Boehner the drunk” becomes a bigger issue with the public than “Boehner the corporatist” or “Boehner the economy-ruiner.” The public is funny that way.
Asshole
@Hugin & Munin:
I think the incarcerated get to use whatever drugs they can smuggle in there, too. Or at least if they’re caught with them, there’s usually not much left that can be done to punish them… Tacking on some more time, I guess.
MattR
@Corner Stone: @Josie: I kinda think they are trying to create a “the media is going after Republicans” narrative with BS nonsense as a way to hide the nastier crap they are doing. I am pretty sure the GOP would rather us talking about Boehner’s drinking than the hold placed on giving the BP Commission subpoena power by an anonymous GOP senator.
@Hugin & Munin: Did you happen to watch “In Plain Sight” last night? The witness to an attempted bombing was a homeless by choice man who was not thrilled with being forced back into mainstream society (only caught the first 20 minutes)
ajr22
If you had to control the group of idiots that is the Republican House, you would need several drinks to.
Eric U.
I don’t believe this story for a minute; drinking that much would cut into his tanning time.
Warren Terra
Yup. The problem with Boehner is that to the extent he’s got any ideas, they’re really, really bad ones. How he spends his time when he’s not promoting his non-ideas and his bad ideas should be of no interest to us so long as nobody’s getting hurt and no particularly rank hypocrisy is evident.
Alex S.
Doesn’t surprise me, I think I said it here about 3-4 months ago that Boehner might have a drinking problem. At least, I guess that this is the implication of this rumor. Btw, love the “Going Galt” tag.
Third Eye Open
I think the filibuster should be replaced by drunk committees. Everyone in the discussion who is an elected leader should have to be above legal limits before the commencement of the meeting. There will be one sober person which would rotate session to session with veto power and the ability to designate time, and other mundane aspects of the meeting. The veto could be overcome by unanimous votes from the other members of the committee, or the sober-person losing at cornhole or bocce, once challenged to a match. There can be no more than one challenge per meeting, per elected representative and all matters, once broached, must be satisfied before the committee can adjourn. Once the committee has finished their study, the matter comes to a vote in the full Senate with an upper-down vote.
Uloborus
@MattR:
Ha! Oh, they may not officially test you for drugs, but doctors watch each other like hawks for drug problems, they have massive doctor-specific counseling services, all of that. Doctors have more substance abuse problems than any other profession, both because of the stress and easy access. The doc in my family can’t watch House because the moment she sees him pop a pill she just can’t believe the whole hospital isn’t calling him on it.
On the other hand, when they get a substance abuse problem they’re treated like people who have a problem. Wouldn’t it be nice if other industries had an attitude like that?
MOVING ON:
While alcohol could theoretically affect job performance here, I disapprove of concentration on his drinking because it’s part of an overall pattern. The media just could not give a flim flam about policy or actual politics, only image and the horse race. I don’t want celebrity tabloid reporting in politics.
Bob L
Kind of interesting the Repugs are panning Boehner if they are supposed to take the House in November like they are claiming. You would think they would be praising him as Newt II; “The Orange Atomic Glow!” or something. Instead they are the ones calling him a sulky, drunken slacker. So what are they blamestorming about?
Zifnab
Will that be slotted in before another “ZOMG! Obama smokes cigarettes!” piece or after a “Is President Blackula secretly from the blackest party of blackity-black Kenya Blackistan? This crazy Russia Dentist says yes!”
Of all the reasons for TPM not to run this story, degrading journalistic standards simply isn’t even on the radar.
WereBear
Kinda funny; workers during colonial times had tots of rum or an outright beer ration as part of their wages.
It’s not like someone was driving a harvester back then, but it was pretty well established as what an employer provided.
Really, it’s nobody’s business if it doesn’t affect their work.
TooManyJens
@J.W. Hamner: The first version I saw of this quote was longer, and included the statement “He’s not a hard-working guy” or something like that. So yeah, I think it was supposed to be a slam on his work habits.
ricky
Lack of work ethic + appears early at bars
Line appears immediately after bizarre and politically disastrous taped interview with newpaper.
Line is promoted by former member of Newtie freshman
class.
Putsch Boehner under the Bus.
The Cantor choir is getting ready for what happens after the midterms.
Zifnab
@Bob L:
I think Cantor and some of the other guys are making their move. If the Republicans do retake the House, expect a little old fashioned backstabbing and scalp taking. Boehner was always only supposed to be a placeholder until Republicans could find a new Tom DeLay.
freelancer
…and the third TP/Boehner nonsense story in 2 days is up now:
Boehner Takes A Stand Against Paying $1.50 More For Indoor Tanning
Though this one is kind of low-hanging fruit.
kay
I don’t think anyone should rely on anything Joe Scarborough says, particularly ThinkProgress.
This might lead to more Joe Scarborough statements being taken seriously outside the confines of that horrible soulless group of spineless ass-kissers he’s hired to appear on his program, and that’s not good.
Corner Stone
@Third Eye Open: I’m reminded of the story Hatch told at Kennedy’s service. The one where he caught Teddy a little tipsy and got him to do a couple big favors for the Mormon group in Boston. Where Hatch came to his office the next day and Ted said, “Orrin, what else did I agree to last night?”
I think a few cocktails would either lead to accommodations or full on Korea style parliamentary fist fights.
Either way, the system would be improved.
Bob L
@Zifnab: After they win? I would expect the knife in the back after the 2011 honeymoon is over and Boehner inevitably stumbles on something. This seems a tad more immediate. Maybe the Repugs own polling is showing the Base getting pissed at having their NOT socialists unemployment dicked with?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
An elected rep is like his own franchise with the stock holders limited to the residents of his district, or state, if a Senator. Unless he breaks House rules, or the law, he only answers in substance to his constituents, or voters in his defined congressional district. And the House has no rules on work hours, or performance etc…… Though obviously, he cannot break the law at any time. Especially if it’s a felony.
But simply being lazy and liking to party hard has holds no worry for him, so long as his voters don’t have a problem with it. And I don’t really care what he does.
My only disappointment is that he doesn’t spend more time on the job of minority leader making an ass out of himself. On the other hand, him hanging around the House, also means he can think up more monkey wrench mischief for majority initiatives. So that seems like a wash.
But it really isn’t any of my beeswax when you get right down to it. And I will not be the one to smear our very first orange wingnut leader. No siree. I ain’t no bigot.
eemom
@WereBear:
In this case, that is a big fucking IF.
I’m as much of a +er as any of you guys, but surely you would acknowledge that excessive drinking, unlike getting a blow job from an intern or smoking cigarettes, DOES have the capacity to seriously impair job performance??
This asshole is the leader of the minority party in the United States House of Representatives and could, God forbid, become the Speaker third in line from the presidency. Fer Chrissake. Would his boozing be “nobody’s business” if he were a freakin ambulance driver?
kay
I don’t think it’s about “the bars”, or drinking.
I think Joe wanted to slam his work ethic so had to have him “seen” somewhere other than at work at 5 or 6 o clock.
Because if every Republican is “seeing” him at bars, every Republican tattling on him is in the bar.
Staging a Comeback
If I were John Boehner I’d drink, too, rather than face the truth sober of what a complete and utter asshole I am.
I don’t think drinking a lot in and of itself is a story, but it certainly has the potential to become one if our illustrious minority leader is eventually picked up for OUI or disorderly conduct. If he really is a problem drinker, that is bound to happen at some point.
Corner Stone
@eemom:
All he ever says is, “Hell no you can’t!”
How sober do you need to be to do that? It’s not like he’s negotiating treaties.
El Cid
@Zifnab: Tom Delay — speaking of people who make comments while sounding drunk — this was the guy who suggested Barack Obama should present his gift certificate.
Ash Can
I’m with Corner Stone @ #25. I don’t give a flying crap if the guy gets drunk for breakfast every day, as long as he does a decent job once he’s wheeled into, and propped up in, the House chamber. But he doesn’t; he’s an asshole. And that is what he should get dinged on.
The Cantor’s-making-his-move theory makes sense to me.
JGabriel
DougJ:
I hate this too. I don’t want association with Boehner giving alcohol, drunkenness, and bar-hopping a bad name.
.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: John Boehner throwing the stimulus bill on the floor of the House. It’s a very audible, booming thud.
robertdsc
ThinkProgress has been really awful of late. The tone of some of their posts is hard to read sometimes.
El Cid
By the way, I think the oranging is worse than the drinking.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Boehner should have replied to morning blow, “I may like to drink, but atleast a dead intern has never turned up in my office.”
MikeJ
@eemom:
Absolutely, if he only drank after work.
El Cid
@Mike Kay (Team America): Hey, that’s not fair, she just fell backwards into a desk hard enough to crack her skull open, and this was established by a real medical examiner, albeit one earlier cited for medical evidence fraud. Besides, only Chandra Levy was worth covering.
Third Eye Open
@Corner Stone:
I just want to see Bocce played in the Capitol building…
jeffreyw
Mmm…pork and beans.
Christian Sieber
Wouldn’t any sane person, stuck in the life that is John Boehner’s, feel driven to drink?
Maybe he is really a decent guy who is trapped by his ideological history, his social network, and his fundraising — all tied to being the hardcore conservative. He might have seen the light and yet be powerless to escape the web of the GOP. So he turns to alcohol.
More realistically, wouldn’t anyone with any sort of moral compass want to drink a lot if forced to live and socialize with the sociopaths in D.C. and the Village?
Corner Stone
@Third Eye Open:
If they ever do, I’m flying my 5 yr old up there. I’ll share their drinks and he’ll dominate the game.
Come to think of it, that’s a great way to get things passed. Bocce for the win. We win, UI extensions/real jobs bill, meaningful FinReg, and a bill to be named later.
They win the Capitol is moved to SC, Brownies are all deported except for the ones business needs to exploit, and we re-animate Reagan.
No worries. Me and my kid got this.
Mark S.
Well, great, now I have this song going through my head.
(I was kind of pissed not being able to find this in English, but it’s kind of entertaining watching this dubbed in French)
maus
“God, barry SOETERORO can’t even be a good Muslim.”
bago
This looks like a boehner hit job, which is at least creative. Our repertoire of rhetorical violence was getting stale after being thrown under the bus.
JenJen
I don’t find the Joe Scarborough dish to be all that intriguing. What I find so much more interesting is that, when Scarborough first started talking about Boehner being a bit of a bar fly on “Morning Joe,” he was talking with Jim Vanderhei, of Politico. And when Scarborough asked Vanderhei point blank if his sources were telling him the same thing about Boehner, Vanderhei replied, “Well, his people would probably tell you that he’s at those places doing fundraisers for his colleagues.”
Upon hearing that, I thought, you know, how strange. Vanderhei, allegedly a political reporter and editor, sought to immediately spin the Scarborough gossip for Boehner, rather than answer the question. And now, just a day or so later? It appears Boehner’s people are saying exactly what Vanderhei said they would “probably tell you.”
link to the Morning Joe segment here
Nice work you’re doing there, Vanderhei. Maybe one of these days they’ll let you continue that kind of crackerjack reporting over at one of the big outlets! Oh, wait…
NeuroSci
@Uloborus: Oh Jesus, that is complete bullshit. The high rate of addiction that we see in medical professions puts the lie to all of this “watching like a hawk” that is supposedly going on amongst doctors.
Kobie
@robertdsc: And don’t get me started on the comments section. Complete cesspool.
SiubhanDuinne
@El Cid #58:
*Gift* certificate?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
“Demon rum”. DougJ, your 1800s dictional anachronisms always crack me up.
El Cid
@SiubhanDuinne: Tom Delay, saying Obama needs to show his gift certificate.
NobodySpecial
@Hugin & Munin: I just wanted to say, I love the name. I await someone posting as Laird Kilgour of Kilgour.
Unabogie
I think it needs to be pointed out that if the Teabaggers win in November, John Boehner would be third in line in succession to the Presidency. So yeah, it matters whether he’s a lazy, drunken, freak.
Corner Stone
@NeuroSci: I’m glad you said it.
My ex is an RN and the freaking things she’s seen and testified to.
Damn clown had his own morphine drip at one point until he was busted. After months.
Don’t tell me about “watching like a hawk”.
Shit.
SiubhanDuinne
@El Cid #80: Oh! LOL! Somehow I missed that and didn’t get your joke. Sorry. . . .
mattt
That explains the tan: passed out in a pool chair, every Saturday morning.
mattt
A little more seriously on the ethics of reporting Boehner’s habits: of course it’s relevant. Not just to his “work ethic” but to any stands he may take against, say, the legalization of marijuana.
asiangrrlMN
Well, if he wasn’t stone-cold drunk when he was talking about ants and the moratorium, then he’s even stupider than I thought–which, considering how stupid I already thought he was, would be saying a lot.
Hugin & Munin
@NobodySpecial: We are pleased to serve, tho’ we are not often found in these environs.
Uloborus
@NeuroSci:
No, actually it doesn’t. Those two pieces of information are not at all mutually contradictory. I can see how they’d sound like they are, but they’re not.
Quite the contrary, they may be mutually reinforcing. Law enforcement numbers are plagued by the ‘Did crime go up, or are you just *catching* more of them?’ question.
There’s some question as to whether the job attracts addictive personalities, but mainly it’s a very stressful job and it’s really, really easy for them to get drugs. Which is why they’re watched so hard, which is why so many of them end up in rehab.
I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong, although having worked in a hospital and a clinic and having a family that’s heavy in medical professionals I don’t think I am. But your argument does not counter what I said.
DougJ
@JenJen:
That’s very interesting.
twiffer
why do i feel this will lead to calls for repealing the repeal of prohibition?