March 31, 2011
By C. Edmund Wright
When John Boehner teared up like a schoolgirl last November on election night, it became clear to most of the folks who had cast votes that ultimately propelled him to the top of his profession that the Speaker in waiting had no clue as to what had just happened to propel him to that office.
There were reasons for tears of joy, but the House career ladder was not one of them. For some mystifying reason, the man from Ohio thought his storybook rise to power was the point.
Uh John, it was not. Let me help you out.
The point was that there is way too much power -- and way too much of our yet to be earned money -- concentrated around folks in Boehner's profession. The point is that we want to reduce, not celebrate, that power. And yet, the election's final score was not even determined when we got our first sobering reminder that Boehner had no idea what had just happened. (Not that this shocked us frankly.)
He was celebrating what Washington had just done for John Boehner -- while we were steamed about what Washington has done to all of us.
So just what perverted John Boehner, the tough-minded business owner who was first elected to Congress in the early 90's? That's the Boehner we need now, not the one whose tear ducts and skin pigment have been put on high alert after nearly two decades of power and privilege in D.C.
Alas, we can only assume that business ownership and other realities of life outside government are but a distant memory for Boehner. Let me clue Mr. Boehner in: running a business now is infinitely harder than it was when he last tried it. In fact, doing almost anything is harder now. And Washington is the reason. Clearly, the Ohioan has lost touch with that reality. Read More
