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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJohn Boehner: Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia
PoliticoSome of them, well, you could tell they werent paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, thats a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I dont think that would satisfy them, because they didnt really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.
To them, my talk of trying to get anything done made me a sellout, a dupe of the Democrats, and a traitor. Some of them had me in their sights from day one. They saw me as much of an enemy as the guy in the White House. Me, a guy who had come to the top of the leadership by exposing corruption and pushing conservative ideas. Now I was a liberal collaborator. So that took some getting used to. What I also had not anticipated was the extent to which this new crowd hatedand I mean hatedBarack Obama.
On election night 2010, after Republicans made massive gains, President Barack Obama makes a phone call to Congressman John Boehner, the presumptive incoming speaker of the House. | The White House/Pete Souza/AP
By 2011, the right-wing propaganda nuts had managed to turn Obama into a toxic brand for conservatives. When I was first elected to Congress, we didnt have any propaganda organization for conservatives, except maybe a magazine or two like National Review. The only people who used the internet were some geeks in Palo Alto. There was no Drudge Report. No Breitbart. No kooks on YouTube spreading dangerous nonsense like they did every day about Obama.
madaboutharry
(40,233 posts)When asked if he believed Pres. Obama was born in The United States he did not answer Of course he was born in The United States and to say he wasnt is an ugly lie.
Instead he answered I take his word for it.
Which is not the same thing, its a weasel. And it helped perpetuate the birther lie.
mobeau69
(11,162 posts)Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)His first opinion of Michelle Bachman as being a nut and Ted Cruz There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else is right on, only it's gotten worse as the years go by.
malaise
(269,218 posts).House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Sunday that while he believes President Obama is an American citizen and a Christian, Americans have a right to think otherwise if they so choose.
"It's not my job to tell the American people what to think," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet The Press" when asked about a recent focus group of Iowa voters shown on Fox News during which several said they believe Obama is Muslim.
"The state of Hawaii has said he was born there. That's good enough for me," Boehner said. "The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word."
Boehner rejected the suggestion that he and other Republicans were not forcefully denouncing myths about the president's citizenship and religion because it weakens Obama politically.
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Fuck Boehner!
Ocelot II
(115,899 posts)that his descriptions of Bachmann and Cruz are spot on. And I think his comments illustrate the ongoing disintegration of the GOP, which was once comprised mostly of clueless plutocrats with whom you could have a rational discussion about marginal tax rates, but now consists of power-mad lunatics with no principles at all, even bad ones, other than owning the libs.
Salviati
(6,009 posts)... it will inevatibly become a political party of morons.
Ocelot II
(115,899 posts)Caliman73
(11,752 posts)You mean like handing out checks from the Tobacco lobby straight on the floor of the House before a vote? You mean like using your former position in Congress to lobby for Cannabis after spending a lifetime vilifying it and keeping it illegal, incarcerating a generation of young men of color on some bullshit? That getting it done?
Boehner wants to come off like some elder statesman. He was one of the progenitors of the slimy Republicans we have in Congress now. Him, Gingritch, De Lay, Hastert, and others set the template for todays dipshit obstructionist Republicans.