08 Mar JOHN BOEHNER’S RESIGNATION AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
John Boehner announced his resignation as Speaker of the US House of Representatives and as a member of Congress as of the end of October 2015.
TOP POINTS:
- John Boehner’s resignation is a positive step for America
- His decision to defer the effective date of his resignation to the end of October ironically symbolizes the reasons why his resignation is a positive step for America. Rumors abound of deals he has made with Nancy Pelosi to complete one last month of ruling class control of major decisions, before leaving his post
- John Boehner was not uniquely, personally the problem that led to so much conservative opposition to his role as Speaker. He and many others in GOP House Leadership consistently chose timidity over strength, capitulation over a fight, on issues of great consequence to America.
- Once President Obama and Democrat leadership figured out that all they had to do was refuse to negotiate or compromise, and the GOP would inevitably back down, the GOP leadership lost its ability to win the vote on any issues of consequence. Conservative and GOP voters are deeply frustrated, actually outraged, watching perpetual GOP capitulation and watching American ideals being crushed.
- Merely changing the name of the person who serves in the role of Speaker of the House will not assuage that frustration. If leadership replaces John Boehner with someone similar in outlook, the frustration will remain.
- For all his weaknesses as a political leader, the occasion of his resignation may be a good time to revisit the difference between the personal and the political.
On that last point, John Boehner is likely a very decent man. Personal jabs are classless and pointless.
But historically, he was a weak and frustratingly ineffective Speaker of the House at a time of profound challenge for America. Political leadership in the most powerful nation on earth is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. It is the toughest arena in the American and global competition of ideas, and the force of conviction and power of articulation are ‘must haves’ that Boehner simply didn’t have. That doesn’t make him a bad man; but it did make him a very bad Speaker of the House.
Reports that his resignation follows one final set of ‘deals’ with Nancy Pelosi whereby House majorities will be assembled to keep funding Planned Parenthood and perhaps kick the can down the road on other controversial topics, all for the purpose of preventing a government shutdown, capture precisely why Boehner needed to go, and ought to have left sooner.
The ruling class of both parties simply cannot accept that there is any issue in America or the world today that compares with the catastrophe of shutting down the federal government. Never mind that the federal government never truly shuts down as to the overwhelming majority of its activities. To the ruling class, the federal government is the institution on which life in America depends, and the political fallout from finger-pointing as to who ‘caused [any form of] shutdown’ is unbearable.
So…America’s ruling class is telling Americans that:
- Stopping the nuclear arming of the Islamic terrorist regime of Iran is not as important as keeping the federal government fully funded.
- Stopping taxpayer funding of the abject barbarity and moral depravity of harvesting and selling baby parts in America is not as important as keeping the federal government fully funded.
- Stopping the evisceration of America’s borders, stopping the Islamic hijra represented by Syrian refugees, stopping executive amnesty and many other flagrantly unconstitutional actions of President Obama—none of these threats is important enough to fight for, if a government shutdown might result.
In the phrase coined by Carly Fiorina, fighting for these causes defines our character as a nation. If Americans have to shut down the federal government and start over in order to right the American ship of state, that may be exactly what Americans have to do.
We have run out of room on the road to keep kicking the can. Arming Islamic terrorists with nuclear weapons is moral insanity if not actual treason. A society marked by passive acquiescence to even the concept—much less the actuality—of baby harvesting, is a society that will not long endure as a civil and ordered society. And relentless capitulation to a President who mocks and defies the American Constitution will be the end of the Constitution, and the end of America.
John Boehner doesn’t get any of this; he never did; our guess is he never will. He is in the delusional state of belief that says tomorrow will always be mostly like today, that all political agendas are mostly benign, so don’t sweat anything that’s going on because at the end of the day, it’s all small stuff.
Americans know that what’s going on in 2015 in this country and the world is not small stuff; it’s potentially world-changing and massively consequential—for evil or good.
America’s survival as a force for good matters, and Americans must have leaders who see what is at stake, and have the courage to stand up and speak up to preserve this nation as founded. John Boehner didn’t fit the bill. That’s why it’s positive for America that he’s leaving the speakership and the Congress.
Let’s hope the next Speaker is stronger, clearer and vastly more courageous than John Boehner.