Dear John Boehner
John? Can I call you
John? It’s my name too; see, we’re
already finding things we have in common-that’s a good sign! I have to admit that I’ve never been a
huge fan of yours. I definitely
respect the way you pulled yourself up from relatively humble beginnings
(sharing a bathroom with eleven siblings-I hope Glade had been invented by
then). You went to Xavier
University-I have a friend that went there!
 |
| Speaker of the House John Boehner |
But I’m not a huge fan of some of your stances, I’ll readily
admit. The whole gay marriage
thing? I’m totally on-board. Your views on the environment aren’t
quite equal to mine (actually, they’re the polar opposite). In fact, except for a few
crime-and-punishment stances you’ve made, I don’t think we agree on anything.
There is one thing that I think we can both agree on, though, and
that’s that this government shutdown has gotten out-of-hand. Ridiculous even. Perhaps even the word cluster with a
few choice Rahm Emanuel words thrown in after it might be appropriate. I am aware that this wasn’t really your
fault. You’re playing the team
that America dealt you, and they aren’t exactly what you would have registered
for. I don’t know what Iowa was
thinking with Steve King or what Texas was thinking with Louie Gohmert (come to
think of it, I can never figure out what Texas is thinking). And I’ve been hiding my
Minnesota-loving head ever since we decided that Michele Bachmann would be a
great addition to Congress. So I
understand your concerns, and have some sympathy; we don’t get to pick all of
our congressmen either (ever met Alan Grayson?).
The thing is, though, you and I both know the clean bill would pass if
it actually came to a vote. Even
if we forget that Nancy Pelosi has all 200 Democrats lined up in a row and that
19 Republicans have said they’d vote for the bill and that you endorsing it
would certainly gain another 50-60 Republicans (you’re still popular with some
of your caucus, don’t forget), it would pass. That’s the thing about high-profile bills that the public almost
unanimously supports-when you have to actually mark down how you’re voting, you
tend to do what’s going to get you reelected.
I understand that this isn’t going to play super well in your caucus,
but from the looks of things, do you really want to run again in 2014? I mean, you say you do, but lately your
heart doesn’t seem very into it.
You can take confidence that you have made it nearly impossible for the
sequester cuts to be overridden until the Democrats control all aspects of
government (and with the excellent job your fellow Republican governors did
with redistricting, it’ll likely be at least another nine years before that
happens). No one can say you
haven’t fought the good fight on Obamacare-voting 43 times on the same thing
knowing the outcome may be the definition of insanity, but I’ll use a more
attractive word like perseverant instead.
The problem with this whole standoff, what with the financial
apocalypse coming down next week and the country all worried that Lithuania is
going to have a stronger dollar than us by the end of the year is that you can
still get out of this with little impact to your changes in next year’s
elections. No one will remember
the shutdown a year from now if it ends this week. It’ll be embarrassing, sure, but the country will have moved
on. I mean, everyone thought Kim
Kardashian’s career would be DOA with that sham wedding, and she’s doing great
now. It may cost you the Virginia
governor’s race, but that’s about it, and did you really want Ken Cuccinelli elected
anyway? I mean, the Democrats
aren’t too thrilled with Terry McAuliffe (we both kind of dropped the ball on
that one-something to discuss in our next letter).
The thing that people will remember, though, is hitting the debt
ceiling. Because Americans may not
have great memories, but they do recall when we willingly risk the world
economy. And even if they don’t
remember, countries like China and Japan surely will. Plus, there’s that whole pesky 14th
Amendment-you’ve probably read it, it’s twelve more than the 2nd,
which I know is your favorite.
And if the Democrats win the House in 2014 and pickup seats in the
Senate (we could do it-we did it last year) as a result of this showdown, not
only will you no longer be Speaker, you’re going to be a pariah in the
party. You’ve seen how the GOP
treats pariahs-even you probably can’t say Mitt Romney’s name without rolling
your eyes. It’s not a fun place to
be. So it’s for the best that you
pass the clean bill and raise the debt ceiling. Sure, King and Bachmann and Amash will complain about the
end of the world for a little while, but then an activist judge in Utah will
legalize gay marriage and they’ll move on. And you-you’ll remain the most powerful Republican in
America. Not a bad place to be at
all.
Sincerely Yours,
John, a Concerned Democrat
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