David Corn: How the GOP's Kamikaze Club Hijacked John Boehner

[babylonsister]

Difficult to cut; lots of interesting tidbits here.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/how-gop-hardliners-hijacked-boehner-debt-ceiling-obamacare

How the GOP's Kamikaze Club Hijacked John Boehner
Right-wing groups, tea party back-benchers, and the Koch network plotted and pushed the House speaker to this breaking point—and he hasn't fought back.

—By David Corn
| Wed Oct. 9, 2013 3:00 AM PDT


snip//

Days after Boehner quashed the Bridenstine/Huelskamp-led revolt, conservative talker Sean Hannity challenged the speaker and asked him if he were prepared to do whatever was necessary to thwart Obamacare. Boehner replied, "Sean, we're the minority party in Washington, DC. You've got a Democrat president, you've got a Democrat Senate. It's very difficult for us to impose our will on them." Showing that he was still committed to political reasonableness, Boehner added, "Do you want to risk the full faith and credit of the United States government over Obamacare? That's a very tough argument to make."

Yet beyond the speaker's office, conservatives were plotting. That network of conservative groups led by Edwin Meese III, President Ronald Reagan's controversial attorney general, kept pushing their defund-Obamacare campaign, whipping up the grassroots even further. In Washington, various conservative advocates, including Groundswell, a gathering of conservative players that coordinated messaging, pushed the defunding effort.

And there was tea party favorite Ted Cruz, the Republican freshman senator from Texas.

snip//

So the plotting on the right worked. Whatever desires Boehner had for the coming year after the 2012 campaign—say, working reasonably with a reelected president on long-term budget matters—they have been wiped out by the tea party extremists, who were encouraged and reinforced by a massive, unrelenting outside effort subsidized by tens of millions of dollars from the Koch network and other funders. The result: Boehner has chosen to lead by being led. He may have been carjacked by a well-organized gang that stuck to a well-designed and well-financed plan, but he is not blameless. After all, he gave up the keys to this car without much of a fight.

[xfundy]

1. The Kochs are holding Bonehead's whisky hostage.

[rhett o rick]

2. It should be noted that the leaders of the Republican Party are very weak individuals.

Georgie Porgie was pathetic as a politician and as a human being. How's about McCain the sad wreck of a man that begged Karl Rove to like him. Mit Romney, what a a-hole, excuse my French. Boner is from the same cloth. He is a puppet and not even a good one. The Powers To Be love their idiot puppets. Can you say Sarah Palin.

[Sanity Claws]

3. Meese is far more than a controversial former Attorney General

He resigned while under investigation for a scandal. Financial improprieties of course.