Depending, of course, upon just exactly what you think John Boehner's job is:
"I'm very sympathetic to John Boehner because I was fortunate," Gingrich, who served as GOP speaker from 1995 to 1999, told John Bachman in an exclusive interview on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV. "I was fortunate to have Bill Clinton as a partner, where we could fight in the morning and then work out something in the afternoon.IOW, it was easier for Newt to cave to Bill Clinton and feel good about it then than it is for Boehner to cave to Barack Obama and feel good about it now.
"My sense is that, with Obama, there's nobody there. Boehner cannot sit down with the president and work out an agreement that is honorable for both sides — and, as a result, it's much harder for him to lead.
Which is largely true. There's an expression about con games: "Always make sure you can skin your marks more than once". One does this by a number of means: (1) Always make them think you're their friend; (2) Don't spoil the illusions they themselves create; (3) Don't "run up the score". For those who considered Mr. Newt a "RINO sellout" who craved "bipartisan deals," y'all were always pretty much SOL, because Sick Willie was such a grand master of prevarication that he could strip the Speaker naked as a jaybird without his even realizing it and then sell him a whole new wardrobe six sizes too small and then also tack on a weight loss regimen and gym membership to boot. All the while Newt believed he was "working with" the 42nd president and "getting things done".
This didn't make Speaker Gingrich a "RINO sellout". He was simply a conservative Republican who didn't recognize he was (1) in a permanent political war with the Democrats, (2) being regularly fleeced by their roguish leader, and (3) saw his job as "working with" that individual to "get things done". Which so happens to be how a majority of Americans viewed his job description as well (a lesson driven home by Mr. Bill's 1996 re-election), even as the conservative minority raged in frustration that he wasn't waging the political war being waged against the country and them.
It's not easy to be a Republican congressional leader in a time of divided government.
For all those who consider John Boehner a "RINO sellout" who craves "bipartisan deals," you should be grateful that Speaker Boehner isn't facing Bill Clinton. The only thing that Red Barry and Sick Willie have in common is pathological dishonesty. But whereas Mr. Bill was historically fantastic at it, King Hussein is godawful, to the point of regular counter-productivity.
Look at "The Three Laws" again. O isn't even aware of (1) because he doesn't want friends, he demands worshippers and acolytes. Friends are inherently equals to whom fellowship, brotherhood, loyalty and self-sacrifice are freely given. Since he is dominated by delusions of godhood, the dictator considers himself peerless, a demigod to whom total devotion is owed.
This attitude in turn makes (2) impossible. Take the recent House GOP flirtation with "comprehensive immigration reform". The notion of Republicans building Hispanic support via another mass amnesty of illegals is an illusion of cosmic proportions; always has been. Yet Speaker Boehner was apparently determined to move ahead with it - until forty-eight or so hours ago, when he abruptly did a U-turn and pulled amnesty off the table. Why? Because, he said, he simply did not believe that Barack Obama would enforce any comprehensive immigration reform law that Congress might pass, any more than he has his masterpiece, ObamaCare. One of the GOP's biggest delusionary bubbles was popped.
(1) and (2) team up to torpedo (3). Barack Obama is temperamentally incapable of not "running up the score" because of who and what he is. His stupendous ego demands that his "enemies" be either forced to unconditional surrender or completely eradicated. The very notion of opposition is an affront to his imperial sensibilities. Consequently, he is not capable of, as Mr. Newt puts it, "honorable agreements," of negotiating in good faith, because he is offended by the very idea of having to negotiate with his "inferiors". He is contemptuous of everybody that isn't him, and especially so of any who dare stand against him to any degree.
Speaker Boehner isn't a "RINO sellout". He is simply a conservative Republican who doesn't (or doesn't want to) recognize he is in a permanent political war with the Democrats, whose instinct is to "work together" to "get things done" per the expectations of most Americans (and against the raging frustration of Tea Partiers), but is regularly clubbed over the head with the reality of that political war by The One's interminable arrogant intransigence.
It's not easy to be a Republican congressional leader in a time of divided government. And when you figure in that Boehner, unlike Gingrich, doesn't even enjoy the comfort of his party's control of the other side of Capitol Hill, and thus his plight is an ongoing handicap match against Barack Obama AND Harry Reid, well, it seems that he is deserving of the cutting of some slack.
Besides, given that Red Barry "has a pen, and has a phone" and has insatiable contempt for the United States Constitution, I would suggest that John Boehner, "RINO sellout" or no, is functionally irrelevant. And if O's dictatorial actions provoked The Man From O.R.A.N.G.E. into seeing the immigration light, perhaps they'll inspire him to invoke the other "i" word as well.
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