John Boehner has plenty of reason to resign from his powerful position without even thinking about climate change. But one has to wonder of the sting of conscience played a role here.
Discuss.
Speaker John A. Boehner, under intense pressure from conservatives in his party, will resign one of the most powerful positions in government and give up his House seat at the end of October, throwing Congress into chaos as it tries to avert a government shutdown.
Mr. Boehner, who was first elected to Congress in 1990, made the announcement in an emotional meeting with his fellow Republicans on Friday morning.
UPDATE: Video of Boehner after announcement – “It’s a wonderful day.”
The Ohio representative struggled from almost the moment he took the speaker’s gavel in 2011 to manage the challenges of divided government and to hold together his fractious and increasingly conservative Republican members.
UPDATED UPDATE: Pelosi – a “seismic event”.
below, I kicked off this 2009 (!) video with a classic Boeher on climate clip:
I don’t think so. Here been getting pressure internally to step aside for a while, and there’s about to be another ridiculous government shutdown fight. This is timed to take issues of his Speaker position off the board in advance of the fight. He’ll resign at the end if October, the shutdown fight will be in early October, and this way there won’t be internal power struggles in the GOP mixed up with it.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/09/25/3705579/boehner-steps-down/
I think he was also waiting until after the Pope’s appearance to make the announcement. Boehner invited the Pope, he is a Catholic, and this was probably a highlight to him of his career. He’s likely thinking he’s ending it on a high note.
As the clip shows, Boner is a moron when it comes to the science of climate change. He IS, however, a lifelong Catholic, and has had the “teachings” of the Baltimore Catechism and fear of eternal damnation beaten into him by the same type of scary nuns as those that did it to the rest of us.
I do NOT like the man, but watching him sit and stand within touching distance of the Pope and blubber makes me think that he perhaps DID say to himself “It’s the freakin’ POPE standing RIGHT THERE, and he’s basically saying that the kind of “leadership” I have displayed is SINFUL!!! If I want to save my eternal soul, I need to be OUTA HERE!”
He is probably now saying Acts of Contrition and Hail Marys non-stop, and wearing out his rosary beads. (And I wonder if he ever told the priest in confession that he had grievously sinned by being a climate change denier and having gone against Christ’s teachings in his life as a Repugnant?)
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, 6 of the Repugnant candidates running for president in 2016 are Catholic—Bush, Christie, Jindal, Pataki, Santorum, and Rubio (although Rubio bounces around and was even a Mor(m)on for a while). Cruz’s family was Catholic for generations before someone in there converted to Southern Baptist Is it perhaps time to start a petition to the Pope to excommunicate the SOB’s if they keep denying AGW and favoring the rich over the poor?.
PS Trump is a Presbyterian, and so is Inhofe. Calvin is likely spinning in his grave.
Would Boehner have really been surprised at what the Pope had to say? He’s surely either read or been briefed about Laudato Si by now. Boehner has had plenty of time to ponder what the Pope has to say about the environment and how that might reflect upon him.
Additionally, there are rows after rows of firewalls in these guy’s minds about issues like climate change. They are practiced at filtering or cancelling out what they don’t want to hear. I really don’t think Boehner had a “come to Jesus” moment. Rather, he was just deeply moved to be in the presence of the Pope and to consider himself a factor in getting him here. He also likely knew he was about to retire and was pondering that. This was a huge moment for him professionally and personally.
One other thing: the Pope didn’t say the phrase “climate change” once during his speech to Congress. That transcript is here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-pope-francis-address-to-congress/
The speech has about 5 main parts. The 4th part, towards the end, goes over environmental issues, but the topic is only touched upon briefly and his wording is designed to avoid offense.
Yes, Boner has had “plenty of time to ponder” what the Pope has said, but I will repeat myself and say that having the Pope RIGHT THERE next to him delivering a message that calls into question much of what the Repugnants stand for just MAY have affected his thinking. Do you not find it interesting that he made the announcement the very next day? Why do you deny that Boner has the capability of making a decision based on conscience?
PS I wonder if Moses would have been as motivated if he just tripped over the commandments laying on the ground and did NOT have God speaking to him from a burning bush?
My analysis of Boehner’s timing is in my first comment.
One of the main reasons I comment on this blog is to get us to avoid wishful thinking. I think it can be dangerous, and it’s a trap that we as a species seem all too susceptible. I think that’s the case here as well. We want Boehner to have a change of heart, so we leap to conclusions about a sudden conversion or attack of conscience. I don’t think that’s the case.
Sometimes denial can be based on reason and acceptance based on desire. That leads to some very murky waters, indeed, but that’s life.
Now, if Boehner suddenly starts speaking in favor of action about climate change, obviously, I’ll have been wrong about this. But if Boehner resigned because he was just devastated and woeful about what the Pope had to say, and he thought to step aside as a curative, he didn’t factor in that he is likely to be replaced with someone even less favorable to the environment and social justice than he was. The GOP is covered with such people who are desirous of the power and influence from the position.
Yes, I caught your “analysis of Boehner’s timing in your first comment”, and it’s a bit of overreaching navel-gazing. More to the point, what I said in my comment has nothing to do with YOUR “wishful thinking” about Boner’s motivations. I would sooner try to get inside gingerbaker’s head than Boner’s.
I wish you wouldn’t make such a leap as to characterize my comments as “wishful thinking”, especially since I have been perhaps more of a preacher against its dangers than you are. Be more careful of the straw men you build, because I don’t give a rat’s ass about Boner in any way, shape, or form beyond the damage he has done, and just want him to disappear from the national scene. Whether he has a “change of heart” or not doesn’t interest me, and my speculation on that was just that, speculation—not any “… leap to conclusions about a sudden conversion or attack of conscience”. I don’t KNOW whether that’s the case, and neither do you.
I used the plural “we” instead of the singular “you”, although the speculation in your first comment led me to think it arose more from wishful thinking than reason. Is this an impossibility?
All of it is speculation, of course – both mine and yours.
If you’re asking if it’s impossible for me to engage in wishful thinking, the answer is “Yes, just about 100%”—–I am so old and have been exposed to so much reality that I am pretty much immune to the “bright-sidedness” that seems to infect so many. Hoping that rational analysis of FACTS will lead to a “happy” conclusion is about as close to wishful as I get.
Of course, the bright-sided will accuse me of being an old curmudgeon, but that’s a different discussion.
Boehner was the closest thing to an adult in the room for the GOP leadership, and for that he will be missed. I’m deeply concerned that one of the TP nitwits gets the job. Here we are, facing the greatest world wide crisis since WWII, and we have a Congress of spoiled, petulant children with the key to the gun cabinet. I’m very concerned that this won’t end well. Let’s do what we can to support the few adults that remain.
Please point out any “adults” among the Repugnants that have a chance of being elected to Boehner’s position. I will be glad to support them.
There are only a handful of adults in the GOP in Congress that I’m aware of, and none of them have any chance at all.
Just came across this. Maybe Boner got fired? We already knew he had been “hired”.
https://youtu.be/GmHsZajJf9k
Another article about Boehner’s resignation and his thinking behind it:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/25/politics/john-boehner-resigning-as-speaker/
Some notes from it: Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz are both happy he’ll be leaving, and Kevin McCarthy of California is the favorite to succeed him.
McCarthy on climate change:
http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2014/06/13/5-things-to-know-about-rep-kevin-mccarthys-energy-policies/
Boehner and Climate Conscience? Hardly. What you’ll see of Boehner is an extended vacation and then an appointment at over $1 Million per annum for a second career as a lobbyist.
The pattern among the high ranking in D.C. is perfectly obvious.
Former Rep. Billy Tauzin: Was paid $10.6 Million in his last year as CEO of PhRMA.
Bob Livingston: Disgraced Rep. then lobbyist
Over 400 former legislators are now lobbyists: https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/top.php?display=Z
And 50% of retiring Senators are now lobbyists: http://tinyurl.com/qarzq4q
Yeah, he’s still comparatively young, and he’ll be in very high demand.
The WashPost yesterday and today is full of all kinds of “opinionating” on Boners’s motivation for stepping down. The guys that DID manage to talk to him up close and personal right after he announced his resignation mentioned that Boner said he had spent much of the night praying over it, but the weight of bloviating “evidence” by the so-called journalists supports jimbill’s idea that it was all “political”. I will still maintain that it may have some small roots in a “crisis of conscience”—see my earlier comments on the thread.
Time will tell. If, as Ray suggested, Boner reincarnates as a million $ a year lobbyist for the fossil fuel interests, we will have proof that he has no conscience. If, as jimbills suggests, he becomes an advocate for fighting climate change and poverty as the Pope outlined, he has one.
I’m betting on “no conscience” myself—I was only suggesting he had one to stir the pot. Even if he does have one that was pricked by the closeness of the Pope, once the Pope has left he will likely continue to sell it to the devil as nearly all Repugnants have done (and he has already done so for many years in his role as a Repugnant “leader”).
(And who is the anonymous flaming anal orifice that “thumbs downed” the Catholic Apprentice” clip I posted? Is that you , Russell Crook? Come out from under your rock and fight! Folks have probably forgotten the last beating I gave you, and it’s time to remind all of what a fool you are).