Robert Reich: I'm Surprised Boehner Lasted This Long

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32593-focus-im-surprised-boehner-lasted-this-long

Actually I’m amazed John Boehner survived as long as he has. His one virtue as Speaker of the House has been his total lack of principle, which has enabled him to cobble together majorities or pluralities out of a Party that’s gone off the rails, becoming increasingly misogynist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim; filled with paranoid whackos, voodoo economists, anti-science half-brains, creationists, and white supremists; while being financed by billionaires, Wall Street, and big business.

The problem for the rest of us right now is they’re still a majority in Congress, and many are aiming to close down the government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded and then to default on the nation’s debt rather than lift the debt limit. John Boehner will not go down in history as one of America's greatest Speakers of the House, but at least he served as something of a buffer between the Republican crazies and the rest of America. (This morning when Marco Rubio announced Boehner's plan to retire, attendees at the Values Voter Summit in Washington roared their approval and then rose in a standing ovation.) After the end of October, that buffer is gone.

[Warpy]

1. He's right about Boehner's role as a buffer

but that might have been a disservice. With the crazies right out in the open, grandstanding and posturing and trying to out nutball each other, people might finally wake up to just what the Republicans have become in the last 25 years. I have to think even the dumb ones are going to be appalled at some of it. Boehner had given them a veneer of respectability that most of them don't deserve.

[Moliere]

4. I thought the same thing but

I don't want to see them take us all down in flames while half of this country takes their stoopid hats off

[PatrickforO]

2. Well, the religious crazies and tea party know-nothings

in Congress feel Boehner had bad priorities.

See, he was foolishly giving priority to keeping the government open instead of defunding Planned Parenthood.

Bad Boehner!

[elleng]

3. On the flip side, Eric Cantor: The G.O.P. after John Boehner

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/eric-cantor-the-gop-after-john-boehner.html?