Late on Election Night, President Obama attempted to call Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, but was told that both were asleep. During the evening of New Year’s Day, John Boehner refused to take phone calls from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Back during the negotiations over the debt ceiling in 2011, John Boehner refused to answer the president’s phone calls, leading the president to complain to Bob Woodward.
“I was pretty angry,” Obama told Woodward. “There’s no doubt I thought it was profoundly irresponsible, at that stage, not to call me back immediately and let me know what was going on.”
Alcoholism is a sickness that should warrant people’s sympathy rather than scorn. If John Boehner would ask for help or adopt a contrite attitude like Sen. Mike Crapo, it would be easy to lay off the criticism and not make such an issue of Boehner’s drinking. But he can’t do his job and he isn’t available to come to the phone in the evenings.
He was so visibly hammered during his speech at the Republican National Convention (a tradition that goes back at least as far as the 1996 convention in San Diego) that Michael Savage played his whole speech on the radio in order to mock his drunkenness. He was absolutely plastered on election night in 2010 (a year in which Joe Scarborough called him a “lazy drunk” on the air). For years people have been speculating that Boehner weeps so often in public because he is drunk so often in public.
Personally, I wouldn’t care about Boehner’s drinking if her were just a congressman. But he’s third in line to the presidency and he’s blotto half the time. He can’t answer phone calls from mayors and governors or even the president if those phone calls come late at night.
It’s ridiculous.
But Ted Kennedy. And Barack Obama did coke and was a pothead in college so there.
And on an unrelated note, here’s evidence that your therapy with your son works:
Put Down the iPad, Lace Up the Hiking Boots
Great article. It reminded me of this one in TIME.
He can answer the phone.
Alternately, everyone else could just start drinking more, like in the old days.
Some of the offices in historic Lowell City Hall came equipped with liquor cabinets.
True, very true. When is the last time you saw a professional looking person drink an alcoholic drink at lunch? I believe I last saw that about 20 years ago. The 3-martini lunch is no longer acceptable. I cannot imagine drinking 3 martinis at lunch.
Denial is a very powerful force. Apparently no one has been able to get Boehner beyond that to date. If the President of the U.S.A. can’t poke a whole in his defense system…….
What does that tell us about the House when they elect someone with this obvious problem to be Speaker??
Anyone in a leadership position needs to be aware of their substance use/abuse behavior on their actions. Boehner is scary, as you noted, as 3rd from the Presidency. His dysfunctional drinking problem should be a concern but I am not sure anyone in DC is paying attention.
In today’s world a person could not get hired or retain their job in the financial industry or most private corporations or most government positions with a known drinking problem. It’s amazing that the guy in line for presidency is off limits to this scrutiny. He should be removed from office and then seek counseling for alcohol dependency.
Thank you, Mr. Willis. You’re one of the few people I’ve read who came at the issue from this angle. No, I dislike Boehner myself, and it’s funny to watch a clown embarrass himself, but he is 3rd in line for the Presidency, and he has a serious problem (I’m not talking out of my ass here; I spent 10 years in the bottom of a bottle).
I could also get behind the “everyone drink more” platform. Make weed-smoking mandatory, maybe…
Boehner cannot sober up …….. and face what he has become for the levers of power he has attained.
Perhaps Boehner needs to be cognitively and judgmentally impaired in order to function effectively as a Republican. Most people would.
Reminds me of when Andy Johnson in 1865 stepped up for his VP swearing-in speech in one of the rooms of Congress, and it became clear to all in attendance, especially Abe Lincoln, that Andy was plastered. Spectators lowered their heads in embarrassment, and someone eventually came over to put an end to it.
Abe, about to give his famous Second Inaugural Address, supposedly told an aide to make sure AJ was kept far away from any further public appearances that day. Later, perhaps related to drunkenness by Johnson, Abe told his sec’y/chief of staff to never allow that man near me again.
And AJ’s later incarnation, Lyndon, in the 1950s ran a virtual “booze ‘n broads” operation out of several senate backrooms — or at least did nothing to discourage it and partook of it. LBJ was a heavy drinker himself, but not a fall-down drunk like Andy.
Nixon another heavy drinker, probably a factor in some of his weird behavior as with his predecessor and his extreme mood changes and all the other bizarre stuff.
I remember our American History teacher chuckling about how a drunken Andrew Johnson was the only VP to attempt to make an inaugural address. However, he went on to say that in fact Johnson drank very seldom. He had had the flu or something, and there wasn’t much in the way of medicine around in those days, so when you were sick, you took a few shots of whiskey.
I don’t think it’s true AJ was the only VP to make an address. It’s happened often enough before and since, but I don’t know when that semi-tradition was stopped, from a quick google.
And regardless of why Johnson drank before his Inaugural speech, he was drunk. Did he drink regularly? There is testimony from contemporary accounts during the 1866 midterms when he went out on the stump, of Johnson on several occasions appearing inebriated, stumbling off the speaker’s platform one time.
Perhaps it was another occasion when he was suffering from the flu …
I do wonder how much more effective Boehner would be even if he was sober. The drinking could be an effect as much as a cause of the position he’s in. Sobering up isn’t going to cause the 2/3 of Republicans who are hopelessly psychotic to come to their senses.
So if he wants to get anything done he’s going to have to work with the Democrats and the 1/3 of Republicans who still show traces of humanity. If that’s the case he might as well abdicate his responsibilities and let Nancy Pelosi be the de facto House Speaker. That wouldn’t be so terrible.
And how does the Speaker of the House keep his security clearance if he is a drunk? He could be like that guy on the “The Big Bang Theory” Boehner can only talk to women when he’s drunk or drinking.
Sure. Heavy drinking impairs the actions of certain people. Boehner is a classic…and easily identified…example.
But I ask you…with the astounding amount of pharmaceutical drugs without any doubt being prescribed by doctors to the high and mighty of our ruling class? Who’s to throw the first stone.
In fact…who is too stoned to be able to throw it?
I ask you once again…who among our leaders could pass a surprise under-the-influence piss test on say the third or fourth day of a heavy campaign week or crisis situation? Really. Hillary Clinton? Joe Biden? The 60-ish leaders of the Federal legislatures? Please. I’m their general vintage, strong as an ox and almost totally…minus a little wine and coffee…drug free, and I know damned well that lacking sufficient sleep and calm over as little as two days I’m at about 60% strength and efficiency. Another couple days? Fuggedaboudit!!! Hillary Clinton’s recent collapse (although we’ll never hear about it from Drs. Big Brother and Big Pharma) can be directly connected to her heroic attempts to keep her shit together by any means necessary in order to be able to do her job. Bet on that as well.
Obama? Thin as a rail, male-model slim well into his 50s?
Do you really think he doesn’t have pharmaceutical help?
He’s not sharing, apparently.
Please.
Boehner isn’t just a throwback.
He’s mainstream.
Bet on it.
AG
Ron Paul is thin as a rake into his 80s.
I think the first lady is in great shape and looks damn good. I find your comment about her kind of offensive. What, women have to look like adolescent boys in order to be in shape?
You’re right. She looks…natural. And to me, her husband doesn’t. I watched Obama’s first debate w/Romney and within about a minute it occurred to that he was under the influence of some kind of drug. Probably too much of something or maybe just exhaustion from taking whatever it is that he takes to do the almost superhuman job of being president of this vast, amoral empire. I maintain that surprise urinalysis of most of the high-powered movers and shakers worldwide…both in government and in business…would turn up a pharmacopia that would shock the world. Airline pilots aren’t allowed to indulge, and they’re only in charge of a few hundred lives.
I had no intention of dissing the way Ms. Obama looks. My point was that Barack Obama often looks to me as if he is…well, as if he is engaging in the mental equivalent of what athletes call “juicing.” I do not care if it’s uppers to work inhumanly long hours under maximum pressure at top form, downers of some kind to get a night’s sleep while lying next to the doomsday button on his dresser and the phone that basically cannot be turned off, sleep “regulators” to deal with jetlag or simply those wonderful Ivy League-style peak awareness drugs…any of them (and especially any combination of them) can bite you in the ass at the most inopportune moment. Is it possible to do the kind of job that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do…to deal with the travel, the responsibility, the sheer power of it all and the moral contradictions that those jobs carry…on simply good food and maybe a cup of coffee for a little zinger/a wind-down glass of wine or two at night? Please. I regularly travel long distances for a living and when I get off a plane from NYC to say Moscow I am on my ass for at least a day. Go negotiate with some hard charger like Putin and then the next day fly to Israel to deal with the schmucks who are running that country? No way without chemical help, I’m thinking.
That was my point, and I’m sticking to it.
AG
I believe his drug of choice was nicotine, but we’ve been told that he’s no longer on that drug.
Yeah, right. Nicotine’ll get you through those hard days.
Not.
AG
I appreciate the reply. Wasn’t the debate in Denver? Or somewhere else with a high altitude? They don’t call Denver the mile high city for nothing.
I seem to recall discussion of the high altitude as one possible reason for Obama seeming so completely off his game. Personally, I believe it was part altitude and part total shock at the scope of the lying from Romney.
My sister lives in Denver, and she has a tough time adjusting for a couple of days when she comes to the Midwest, so it seems to me that the adjustment would be even tougher in the other direction, where there is less oxygen.
I don’t believe Obama is taking drugs, so it looks like we will have to agree to disagree.
My best friend is thin as a rail, male-model slim and he’s in his early 60s. Sometimes it’s all about the genes, and also about taking care of yourself, which President Obama does.
I am 5’7″ and 250, just like my father was at my age,
so it goes.
Most of my brothers are about the same, except for my oldest brother, he is 6’1″ and 140, has been that way all his life and he eats over 4000 cal a day.
Some people get good genes, sometimes they use pharmaceuticals to make up for not so good genes and lack of drive to physically exert the effort to make up for it.
If I had to guess, my guess would be, the President got luckier in his genes then I did.
Not everyone needs mind altering substances to deal with the hardships of life – contrary to media pr [speaking of media strike, why do you buy this destructive idea?]. have you ever seen pictures of the Masai, btw?
Do you want to know why there are drug wars in Mexico? precisely because of the thinking behind your comment, AG. I really cannot put into words the level of disdain and anger I feel at that kind of selling short of what is possible both for our culture and for the human.
I doubt most people would put age 51 as “well into” their 50’s. (He was born 8/4/61 – do the math.) And it’s pretty easy to assume another person’s energy level is the same as your own when there’s probably a lot of differences. I’m 2 years younger than Hillary and her energy level amazes me. I could never keep her schedule. But from what I’ve read she’s always gone at energizer bunny levels.
I know plenty of fit, thin, energetic people over 50 who do not gobble drugs. To use Obama’s appearance as your sole argument that he’s a druggy? Please.
In Boehner’s case, I don’t think his refusals to speak to President Obama have anything to do with his alcohol problem. I think it’s more about his racism problem. He has NEVER acknowledged Obama’s command as President and he is as rude and disrespectul to him as anyone else in the Republican party, or more so.
I expect the rest of Boehner’s term will be spent weeping and sneering while the Republican party falls to pieces. He’lll continue to obstinately block discussions and play the injured Leader while Obama flattens him like a steamroller.
Boehner can STFU as far as I’m concerned.
It contributes for sure. If this drunken idiot is telling Reid to Go f*** himself in front of the world. Imagine the racial slurs hes yelling about Obama behind closed doors. Repugs have serious racism issues. Romney’s comtempt for the president in the debates was jaw dropping.