Boehner Takes Jab at GOP “False Prophets”
“There are people out there spreading noise about how much can get done”
In his first interview since his surprising announcement Friday that he is both resigning his role as Speaker of the House and his congressional seat at the end of October, John Boehner “unloads on GOP ‘false prophets'” on Face the Nation.
In his first one-on-one interview since his resignation announcement, Speaker John Boehner blasted right-wing lawmakers and groups as “false prophets” who “whip people into a frenzy” to make legislative demands that “are never going to happen.”
The Ohio Republican also declared on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday that there won’t be a government shutdown this week, though he’s “sure” it will take Democratic votes to pass a temporary funding extension.
“The Bible says, beware of false prophets. And there are people out there spreading, you know, noise about how much can get done,” Boehner said.“We got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen,” he added.
Charles Payne sees this as a direct jab at the TEA Party:
“The Bible says beware of false prophets. There are people out there spreading noise about how much can get done” Boehner rips Tea Party
— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) September 27, 2015
Face the Nation‘s John Dickerson asked him is Ted Cruz is one of these “false prophets” to whom Boehner refers, and Boehner demurs, saying that “you can pick a lot of names out; I’ll let you choose ’em” and then referenced his comment in August while at a Colorado fundraiser (there, he called Cruz a “jackass”).
Watch the full interview:
As Democrats heap praise on Boehner, David Axelrod predicts that the next speaker, swept into position on a tide of conservative “rebellion,” will “not have the freedom to compromise with the president.” The New York Times reports:
The new speaker, elevated to the country’s third-highest constitutional post by a conservative rebellion, will face demands from those same rebels to extract concessions from a president who has little to lose by standing firm. At stake for conservatives will be the one clear victory they have scored since the Tea Party revolution of 2010: firm statutory limits on spending signed into law in 2011, which Mr. Obama has said he can no longer abide.
In turn, the Republican Party, already wrestling with the effect of Mr. Trump’s populist insurgency on its chances at the White House, could find itself with the political challenge of justifying to moderate voters yet another Washington crisis, prompted by an even more obstreperous, confrontational House majority.
“Having been hoisted to the speaker’s chair by what was essentially a revolt,” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, predicted, the next speaker will not have the freedom to compromise with the president.
“This group is not installing him to pursue compromise and mutual cooperation,” Mr. Axelrod said.
That’s certainly the hope of Michael Needham, chief executive of Heritage Action for America. The Washington Post reports:
Earlier Sunday, the leader of one of those outside groups who have pushed for greater confrontation cheered Boehner’s departure. Michael Needham, chief executive of Heritage Action for America, said on Fox News Sunday that Boehner and his allies treated conservatives as “crazies” to be marginalized, not as central players in developing the party agenda.
“[Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi does not talk about her base that way; Barack Obama doesn’t think about his base that way,” Needham said. “We need a Republican leadership that is showing conservative values. … That’s not what we’ve had. We’ve had to fight our own speaker.”
Hopefully, the next speaker will not think of—or at least will refrain from publicly referring to—Republicans to his right as “jackasses” and “false prophets.”
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Comments
To me, Boehner invariably brings to mind Henry Ford’s aphorism, “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”
His point is the only plan of the “insurgents” on any issue is to shut down the government. But it’s a losing effort, it does nothing. Even Republicans oppose it by a plurality. Only 17% of the government shuts down, employees get a free vacation.
BUT ObamaCare and PP aren’t funded by the 17% that would get shut down. Neither are the other issues the insurgents claim we “won’t fight for.” Their funding would continue at 100%.
– –
Some people fan the flames of those who don’t understand this, raising expectations beyond the possible. The FACT is you can’t get anything done over Obama’s veto unless you have 2/3 of House AND Senate to override it.
The other proposals were equally flaccid. “Defeat Lynch for AG!” Why? Holder stayed on until successor confirmed, or did you miss that? Rather keep Holder?
– –
Certain talk radio personalities also noticed they can increase their ratings by fanning the flames. No complaint from me, they are in business to sell an audience to advertisers, and the bigger the better. But people need to understand such things.
Also, when a demagogue gets out making promises that seem too good to be true, they ALWAYS are just that. No exceptions.
Sorry.
You should have given a title to your dialog there: The justification of surrender.
I have always considered John Boehner to be a functional alcoholic.
That’s a mighty generous compliment right there.
Is anyone even listening to Boehner any more, other than Democrats and the left-stream media?
I’ll tell you who’s listening to Boehner: the solid majority of Republican VOTERS (56%) who think keeping the government open is more important than defunding Planned Parenthood.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/28/morning-plum-even-most-gop-voters-dont-want-a-government-shutdown-yet-we-might-get-one-anyway/
And the 30% of Independent ‘Swing’ voters who determine who wins Presidential Elections, including moderate Republican leaning Independent alienated by the mad-dog loud-mouth doctrinaire conservatism of ‘do like we say or we’ll shut-down-the-government’ far right Cobblepots like Cruz.
That’s who.
PP is funded through HHS, which doesn’t shut down, Zippy. A shutdown has no effect on them at all.
Maybe 56% of Republicans are smart enough to understand that because they don’t follow demagogues or talk radio hosts eager to inflame their audiences.
there are things in budges called lines, items, stuff like that. you should look them up. PP could be defunded.
It’s Monday again, and you’re still an idiot. Sad.
Well, count me out of the percentage. See, JJ, I’m not real comfortable with a society that lacks outrage when the major abortion mill (“conveniently located to an urban area near you!”) chops up dead baby parts and sells them at a profit to the highest bidder in violation of Federal Law and my Judaeo-Christian moral beliefs.
To think all this time we were hobbits. At least according to John McLame. Now we are a bunch of crazies and false prophets. We have gone up in stature.
I don’t know about you, but I wear my “Wacko Bird” badge with pride.
Folks are not unhappy with Boehner because he tried and failed. They’re unhappy with him because he didn’t even feel the need to try. Boehner isn’t stupid, he’s just never been on our side. The handwriting has been on the wall ever since voters ran Cantor out of office and it’s taken this long for him to arrange a suitably soft landing. Bottom line is that voters DO matter and there’s real fear that 2016 may prove to be most unkind to the GOPe.
I really liked this little gem from an AP article on this subject:
“Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a longtime Boehner ally in the Republican leadership, said those clamoring for another shutdown this week or later this year would jeopardize the party’s chances at the big prize — winning the presidency in 2016.
‘We have the very same people who led us to disaster in 2013 telling us to do the same thing,’ Cole said Monday on MSNBC. ‘Government shutdowns never work.'”
Umm, didn’t 2014 happen AFTER 2013?
“louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle”
That’s the guy who said that a big problem in politics today is that we the people are getting too much information.
He also complained that talk radio hosts are competing to push people “further right, further right, further right,” but he didn’t seem to be concerned about all the media and institutions that have pushed people so far left they put Obama in the White House and called him a centrist.
And Boehner thinks his main job was protecting the institution of Congress — not preserving the constitutional republic or representing the people’s will.
Why do I feel disgust and not sympathy for Boehner? Why did he run for office if it was not to serve the people? Was it to serve and be part of the ruling class?
My disgust for his attitude keeps growing. There are more where he comes from so it is not over.
Q: Why Boehner/any politician?
A: $$$$$
(What, me cynical?)
Depressing to watch in several ways. One, his pitiful lack of self-awareness and consciousness of the world around him, and two, the reminder of how long he was there and how much damage he did. Obama/Boehner/Reid and/or McConnell — it was a perfect eight-year storm of disaster for our country.
Boehner and McConnell remind me of generals who lose because they are busy fighting the last war. There mindset seems stuck in the politics of the Clinton era. They can’t cope with the way voters today have so much access to information and don’t grasp that when the President is from the opposition party they have to communicate as the face of the opposing party’s principles, not as deal making insiders.
Pelosi was also a lousy communicator, but she understood her role was to push an agena rather than to make deals.
Read up on Union Gen. McClellen.
The union army was never ready…enough.
McClellan had at least 2 to 1 advantage in numbers – 3-1 by the time he was fired. If we had 2-1, we could override vetoes. We don’t,and we can’t.
So the “plan” is to fight for the sake of fighting, accomplishing NOTHING but closing the parks and monuments?
Great plan.
I’ve read enough of your comments to know you aren’t stupid. So what part of creating a Mexican standoff do you not understand?
This problem does not exist if a ‘must pass’ bill is sent to the president with a PP defund rider on it. The president will either veto it or sign it. If he vetoes it, then he has to explain why the chihuahua tail gets to wag the Saint Bernard dog.
What do you think he would say that could flip responsibility for a shut down onto the GOP?
Doesn’t Boehner describing his failure sound like Carly?
Boehner: false prophets
Carly: “I tried to bring change, That creates a lot of enemies.”
Boehner: they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen,
Carly: HP was going to tank anyway.
Boehner ally: He took over during a difficult time.
Carly ally: But but it was during the dotcom crash.
Failure often sounds the same no matter where it happens.
You dumb.
For once, Politico hit it on the nose:
“In his first one-on-one interview since his resignation announcement, Speaker John Boehner blasted right-wing lawmakers and groups as “false prophets” who “whip people into a frenzy” to make legislative demands that “are never going to happen.”
Boehner has been pounded as lacking courage, when in fact his big sin is being able to count. There seems to be a lot of people, headed by Ted Cruz, who seem to think that the Republican Party exists for the purpose of entertaining them by going down in flames, when they know they do not have the votes. I have to wonder how many of them are actually Democrats.
The excuse, that there is something good about “getting them on the record as opposing popular legislation” fails to take into account that, if the proposed legislation were actually popular, they could get some Democrats to agree. The TEA Parties also brought in some right-leaning Democrats, and a big wave of letters from their constituents could sway them. The Republican Party actually has the better and most effective position on most of our critical issues.
I got a ring-side seat to this philosophy the last time there was a big debate over our immigration law. At that time, there was a response against actual amnesty so big that even Ben Cardin D-Maryland acknowledged that they had received an instruction that “the path to citizenship should not go through an illegal act.” But there was no follow-through, because nobody was willing to propose workable legislation to follow up. Indeed, every proposal was met with screeches of “Amnesty!!!!!” whether it had anything to do with amnesty, or not. And I read a column where Michelle Malkin called this a “victory.”
The histrionic approach does not play well with the bulk of the American public, who have a demonstrated, strong distaste for useless theatrics, as shown by the body blows to the poll standing of the Republican Party, every time they play circus instead of legislature.
They didn’t hit anything on the nose (they’re not capable of that). This is just more stale defeatist RINO narrative.
That principled defiance of the bipartisan fusion party (the axis which has led us to our current precipitous state) is described as a “histrionic approach” is telling, and once again completely misses the point. (Still, worth noting, the “histrionic approach” — not sane or reasoned or popular policies — is exactly what has led the Left to near universal cultural conquest, and also what has evidently traumatized Republicans). So much of politics is imaginative in nature, that is, originating within the realm of imagination before meeting reality, and Boehner was simply a walking barrenness of imagination. He was in fact the anti-leader — preemptively and fearfully yielding the imaginative — and finally the very real — fulcrum of power and politics to the Left. He was pitiful, a true representation of a cowed and pitiful and dying party.
Okay, Mr Imagination, imagine me this: you shut down the government over PP, say, or Obamacare, doesn’t matter since only a tiny bit shuts down. NONE of which funds PP or ObamaCare, they keep rolling on at 100%. The laid-off employees get a free vacation while the parks and monuments are closed to citizens.
Here’s my question: what is your plan after that? Because I’ve never heard any articulated that made the least bit of sense. It seems all this is just so you can fee emotionally justified even without accomplishing a damned thing.
I can’t accept your premise of how it would unfold. It’s a disservice to the imagination. The majority party with a majority of the citizenry behind it has potentialities of influence and legislative manipulation these pitiful simps cannot and will not even consider much less act upon.
The question could be asked with another question: what outcome could possibly be worse than where we are?
Here is a good analysis of how RINOs could fight, if they chose to (which they don’t and never will).
http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/28/john-boehner-quit-because-he-was-going-to-be-fired/
Here’s another good piece on the pathetic RINOs and how they fail to fight.
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2015/09/28/the-revolution-has-begun/
“the Republican Party exists for the purpose of…”
Running away from every tough fight?
“…his big sin is being able to count.”
He would count the runs before the first pitch. He would count the touchdown before the kickoff.
With all of his wonderful calculations, we ended up with nothing.
By all countable measures, the Army, Marines, and Navy were soundly defeated at Midway in WWII. However, attitude and determination made all the difference. It allowed them to exploit some luck that was only there because they never quit. The victory at Midway was made by an attitude which allowed for the late Yogi Berra’s wisdom — “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
You have to want to win before you can win. Boehner did not want to win, at least not for the country.
The liberal playbook has always been about the squeaky wheel getting the grease. They have successfully achieved the change they sought time and again on behalf of ultra-minorities who simply would not shut up and go away. Liberals don’t give up simply because they’re told their fight is too ugly, too difficult, or too expensive.
Boehner and McConnell have been unwilling to grease the right’s squeaky conservative wheels and it has cost them their careers. The right’s squeakers are not an ultra-minority. The fact that so many on the right are even giving Donald Trump a serious look tells you that the GOPe is trying to drive a runaway train over which they have completely lost control. The right’s squeakers are not going to shut up and go away. Their numbers continue to grow. They certainly don’t yet have the numbers to effectively control the federal government, but their continued suppression is no longer an option. Too ugly, too difficult, or too expensive are no longer acceptable excuses from Republican leadership.
This is nothing but establishment arrogance. Nothing except what they say can be accomplished. Doesn’t matter if they tried or not, if they can’t do it, no one can.
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, John.
before the door hits you in the ass, John, open it a little wider to let Kevin McCarthy slide on in…
Mr. Boehner, are you referring to those “false prophets” who foretold they’d get rid of your sorry ass?
His ass didn’t seem sorry. His ass seemed happy on the interview shows yesterday, relieved to be escaping from the Avalanche of daily stupid BS from the Right and the Left.
Now if we could only get rid of the assholes at the extremes of both parties, the nation’s ass would be more comfortable too.
Just to be clear, the right and the left are the ‘ass’. The center is the anus, and most of us know what that does.
It would make a great political cartoon:
Straight ahead a big ass, with two flabby cheeks, one marked Democrats the other Republicans, with a vile steamy flow of excretion containing each side’s slogans..
( sorry I thumbed down trilingual to hit reply)
“…the nation’s ass would be more comfortable too”.
And who better to issue such a statement than “Mr. Prep H”…???
The authority on all things “ass”!
What a pathetic excuse for a human being. A true loser.