No Tears for Boehner Here

A friend of mine put up a congratulatory Facebook status towards Speaker John Boehner after he narrowly held on as Speaker. She is a solidly liberal Democrat, and so I scolded her. She rebutted that she likes Boehner, personally (she actually might know him, to inform your reading of this). I rebutted that I don't care.

Let me first state what I think should be obvious, but no one is saying- the entire vote against Boehner, the criticism of him by Sean Hannity, and the whole right-wing "rebellion" thing is one big, elaborate hoax in Washington, even if some of the feelings and emotions in the grass-roots are real. Official Republicans (of which all Congressmen and members of the major media who are conservative are a member) is trying to re-cast the failed Speaker who lead the government to shut down, and who wants to take the country back to a pre-2008 leadership model, as a moderate. They would like you to believe that he is not a real conservative. They don't want him associated with the fanatics like Louie Gohmert. There are two main reasons for that:

1. If they are going to pass their radical, fanatical agenda and have it be popular, so they can win re-election and maybe the White House too, Boehner will have to usher that legislation through. If Boehner is viewed as "reasonable" by the public, it will help their cause, especially since he's the only House member the average public person may have heard of besides Paul Ryan on the GOP side.
2. If this Congress is deemed a failure by the public in 2016, and Hillary Clinton leads in a rout of epic proportions on the GOP, they have to be able to dump Boehner off the ship. This is precisely what they did to George W. Bush at the end of his Presidency. If you actually believe that Bush was anything other than a mainstream, right-wing conservative that believes 95% of the same things as the Tea Party, you are an idiot. He cut spending on regulatory agencies, education, health care, and green energy as President, cut taxes, and lead from the far-right on social issues. Out of every 20 major national issues, Bush was with Conservatives on 19 of them. They now refer to his Presidency as if it was a "moderate" moment. Boehner will be "Bush'ed" if it's convenient for them.

So no, I don't feel bad for John Boehner. Not at all. I don't really have any positive feelings towards him, nor do I wish for him to succeed. This entire rebellion is simply official Washington Republicans seizing on the feelings of their crazy base to set up their own success. It's one big fraud.