By Nick Paleologos
In commenting on the power of
his office, a former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives once
quipped, “Powerful? Let me explain something to you. At the end of the day, I
preside over two hundred and forty people that I didn’t hire, and I can’t
fire.” Yet David Bartley was, by most accounts, an enormously effective leader
of the House. Not so, John Boehner.
You know you’re having a bad
day as Speaker when your own bill to fund the Homeland Security Department is
voted down because a mini-mob of your party’s members leave you in the lurch:
Washington Post: “a major
defeat for Speaker John Boehner who has struggled to govern even as Republicans
hold unified control of congress.”
Politico: “Boehner
Fails Again”
New York Times: “a
stunning and humiliating setback for Speaker John Boehner…”
Since this weepy and woebegone
“leader” of the House Republicans in congress was elected Speaker, events like
this have become routine occurrences. The current hapless and hopeless fight
over putting the country at risk because a few of your colleagues labeled as
“illegal” the president’s recent executive order on immigration is just the
latest in a long line of Boehner boo-boos.
Still it’s amazing how much slack
the chatter class is willing to cut him. Poor John, we’re told. He doesn’t
believe any of what he’s saying. He’d much prefer to get something done. He’s
only doing what he has to do. Blah. Blah. Blah. Seriously? A real leader would
face down the fools on his far flank and force them to actually read the
document they so eagerly wave in everybody else's face—the United States
Constitution.
The last time I checked, the
Supreme Court gets to say what’s constitutional and what isn’t. And if you
don’t like their decisions (Obamacare, Citizens United, Immigration, etc), you
have three options: change the law, change the court, or change the
constitution. It’s up to the Speaker of the House to give a stern reminder to
guys like Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks that, no matter how many years he spent
in the Tuscaloosa District Attorney’s office, shutting down the US government
because he can’t get his way is not an option. Period.
That’s what Tip O’Neill would
have done. That’s what Sam Rayburn would have done. How much longer must we
wait for John Boehner to transform himself from a leader in name to a leader in
fact? Suffice it to say that they won’t be naming a federal building after him
any time soon.
It’s too bad that the
aforementioned David Bartley—who went on to become President of Holyoke
Community College—didn’t teach a course on how to be a great Speaker. For
starters, he might have advised John Boehner to take a look at his job title in
the Constitution: Speaker of the House, not Speaker of the Majority
Party Within the House. As that title should tell him, the job
description is to find a working majority of all the members in
support of public policy choices that most closely mirror his own political
philosophy. Plain and simple.
It has been less than two
months since the GOP has taken full control of this congress and sadly two
things are undeniably true:
1) The radical tail is still
wagging the rational dog.
2) That dog won’t hunt.
