America Will Continue To Pay A Price Thanks To Radical Republicans

American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norm Ornstein writes in The Atlantic about the forces that led to John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner's ouster as Speaker:

... Since 1994, when Newt Gingrich led his party tribe from 40 years of wandering in the desert of the minority to the promised land of House majority, Republicans have become more stridently anti-government and anti-Washington. They have also, when in the majority, become less interested in trying to find policy solutions across party lines. Their desire to act like a parliamentary majority, maintaining rigid discipline and working only internally, became known as the “Hastert Rule” under Gingrich’s successor.

Perfect party discipline continued when Republicans, in the minority, faced Barack Obama in his first two years—unity that translated into reflexive opposition to everything Obama wanted to do. It was part of a broader strategy to delegitimize Obama and Democrats; to cultivate anger and unhappiness as Gingrich had done in 1994 in the midterm elections in 2010; and to seize back majority status, undo the Obama program, and cut government dramatically.

Ornstein goes on to describe the predictable frustrations of this bunch of radical ideologues, and the prospects for Boehner's successor (spoiler alert:  bad to worse).  Continuing to be spurred on by a base that gets its civics lessons from numbnut AM hate radio and Fox "News," and protected in safely gerrymandered seats, the nihilist Republicans' fever isn't likely to break in the foreseeable future.  Good read, though.

BONUS:  Paul Krugman on a party gone mad.

Sunday Cartoons - Transition Time?

(click on images to enlarge)

(Jim Morin, Miami Herald)

(Steve Benson, Arizona Republic)

The prospect of transition in the Roman Catholic Church looks promising under Pope Francis;  the prospect in the increasingly far-right House Republican loony bin caucus and the party at large, not so much.

The Undistinuished Tenure Of John Boehner

Regardless of some of the "hail fellow well met" expressions of regret at the departure of John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner, Alex Pareene offers a pretty good epitaph on Boehner's Speakership.  Here are some excerpts:

It was not a distinguished tenure. His meager accomplishments came in spite of himself and to the great consternation of his Republican colleagues. He pinballed from one pathetic humiliation, usually at the hands of his own caucus, to the next. The only reason Boehner remained speaker for as long as he did—to his eternal regret, it is clear—is because his bitterest opponents were too stupid to figure out how to oust him, and his likeliest replacements never wanted the job.  [snip]

So Boehner kept his job, and Congress staggered haplessly into the next crisis.

Because he was dealing with a Congressional caucus increasingly made up of ideologues and idiots, and because he was occasionally forced to betray conservatives in order to stave off catastrophes, moderate pundits occasionally speak, with some fondness, about John Boehner as a man who tried his best to keep his unruly conservative colleagues from doing too much damage.

There is no particular reason to feel any sympathy for the man.

John Boehner was and is an unprincipled ward-heeler who simply couldn’t weather the transition of the Republican Party from a corporatist party with a sizable conservative base to a purely conservative party. Boehner came to power when the priorities of the House Republican caucus were driven by what was effectively straight-up bribery, and his power came from his close ties to industry lobbies. This is the guy, as we all ought to be regularly reminded, who passed out checks from tobacco companies on the floor of the House.  [snip]

But for a man frequently derided as lacking in backbone, he has stuck to his one overarching principle: Each one of his major legislative compromises as speaker—and even from before he was speaker, like when then-Minority Leader Boehner tearfully begged his Republican colleagues to vote for the 2008 bank bailout—represented Boehner defying the conservative base to act in the interests of the Republican donor class.

The current conservative movement’s frothing, apocalyptic style of politics is the natural result of 30-plus years of resentment-stoking by that same donor class. The monied interests that happily indulged the hysteria of the initial Obama backlash now worry that Jeb Bush can’t beat Donald Trump. Eric Cantor, once Boehner’s likely replacement, and a genuine conservative to his very core, was voted out of office by party activists. It’s long past time for Boehner to get the hell out of Washington and settle into the plush industry “consulting” gig that surely awaits him.  (our emphasis)

And as the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party descends further into existential chaos, the Republican wing of the Beltway Kool Kidz continue in their search for the smoking email.

Quote Of The Day

“I think it signals the crazies have taken over the party, taken over to the party that you can remove a speaker of the House who’s second in line to be president, a constitutional officer in the middle of his term with no allegations of impropriety, a person who’s honest and doing his job. This has never happened before in our country."  --  Menswear critic and I.R.A. bag man Rep. Peter "Burger" King (R-NY) yesterday on the announced resignation of Weeper of the House John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner.  One phrase we'd take issue with is that Boehner was "doing his job."  Oh, and "the crazies" took over your party a long time before yesterday.

BONUS:  Martin Longman (BooMan) says shed no tears for the Weeper of the House.

Exit Weeping, Stage Right

Weeper of the House John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner will be stepping down from his position as Speaker and leave the House of Representatives at the end of October, according to Republican leaders in the House.  Under mounting pressure from the radical right wing members that comprise the majority of his caucus to shut down the Government over funding of Planned Parenthood, the Weeper has apparently decided another pointless Government shutdown was not his cup of Tang.  It will be entertaining to see how far right the next Speaker chosen by rabid, tea bagging House Rethugs will be.

BONUS:  Lots of funny tweets out there, but this is a favorite so far:

Developing: House Republicans create job.

— Dave Stroup (@DaveStroup) September 25, 2015

BONUS II:  Mr. Tangerine Man leaves office reflecting the lack of respect he and fellow Rethugs have for public service.  A hearty zip-a-dee-doo-dah, to you too.