The Democrats have plenty of creatures like Boehner. But in the new Speaker of the House, the Republicans own the perfect archetype — the quintessential example of the kind of glad-handing, double-talking, K Street toady who has dominated the politics of both parties for decades. In sports, we talk about athletes who are the “total package,” and that term comes close to describing Boehner’s talent for perpetuating our corrupt and debt-addled status quo: He’s a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done.
It’s okay to admit that John Boehner is just Steny Hoyer with some waterworks added in for fullness of character. But when comparing John Boehner to Steny Hoyer, it’s important to remember this sequence from Annie Hall.
Allison: I’m in the midst of doing my thesis.
Alvy Singer: On what?
Allison: Political commitment in twentieth century literature.
Alvy Singer: You, you, you’re like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y’know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy Singer: Right, I’m a bigot, I know, but for the left.
And, you know, that’s still an important distinction. It’s not a distinction that will excite anyone, I know. But it matters, a lot, that Boehner is a bigot for the right, that he’s a creature of the right, and that he is going to pursue ends desired by the right.
There are times when idealism is in high demand. This isn’t one of those times. This is an time of trench warfare, of three yards and a cloud of dust.
But let’s go back to Taibbi, since he seems to be about to get on a roll…
It’s hard to imagine that in all of American political history there has been a more unlikely marriage than John Boehner and the pitchfork-wielding, incumbent-eating Tea Party, whose blood ostensibly boils at the thought of business as usual. Because John Boehner is business as usual, a man devoted almost exclusively to ensuring his own political survival by tending faithfully to the corrupt and clanking Beltway machinery.
I woke up this morning with this on my mind. How the hell is Boehner going to pull this off? He’s got to be kidding himself. You can’t exist for long in a no-reality zone. Will Boehner survive the whole year?
