The Great Pumpkin Speaks

Wow, you know you've screwed up if you're a republican and the Moonie Times takes a shot at you. Well, that's exactly what happened when Ohio's king of bad tans chose to speak at a ceremony presenting the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Medal Of Honor. From the Washington Times:

During his short speech to those in attendance, [John] Boehner six times mispronounced the group's name as the "Tusk-E-gee,'' eliciting audible groans from the front to the back of the Capitol Rotunda. One woman standing in front of me leaned to her companion and whispered, "This is so embarrassing, and he's from my state."

Perhaps making matters worse, almost all of Boehner's speech focused on the general accomplishments of American forces in World War II, paying little direct respect to those in the room.

As if to remove any doubt about the verbal kerfuffle, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took the stage and began his speech by pronouncing the group's name correctly, while making a clear, if passing, glance in Boehner's direction. Immediately afterward, the entire crowd broke into applause at the correction.

Between this guy and Jean Schmidt, I'm sometimes embarrassed to tell people I'm from Ohio. I mean, forget party lines, why have we repeatedly elected two of the stupidest people in the Congress? Hopefully that is starting to change.

Tears Of A Clown

This is a couple of days old, but here is a picture of John Boehner weeping on the House floor as the Iraq debate in the House started. He, of course, trotted out that same old line that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow us home. Judging by his tears, I'm guessing he has intelligence available to him suggesting the terrorists are interested in targeting the nation's tanning industry.

Found via Think Progress

Who Said This?

Who penned this quote in the Washington Times referring to the Foley scandal?

"If this evidence was withheld for political purposes, one can only speculate as to how many additional children may have been endangered before this information was finally revealed,"

Why, it was our good friend John Boehner talking about the timing of the scandal coming to the surface so close to midterm elections. Of course, if Boehner would not have withheld this evidence for political purposes back in April, it wouldn't have come out this close to the election, would it.

Note: Time magazine attributes this quote to a Washington Times op-ed by Boehner, but I was unable to find it on their web site. If anyone can find a link, e-mail it to me.

One Simple Question

Who told John Boehner about Mark Foley's dalliances? In everything I've seen Boehner say regarding this matter, Boehner gives the impression that he went to Denny Hastert to see about it. How did Boehner come to know about it? Someone should ask him the question.

Boehner Tries To Peddle Bullshit To The Hometown Radio Station

Apparently, John Boehner's position in the republican House leadership is to wonder aimlessly through life hoping that big brother Denny Hastert does all the "leading." Boehner appeared on WLW 700 AM today and ABC News reports that he had this to say. From ABC News:

ABC's Teddy Davis reports: In a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) placed responsibility for the Foley matter not being handled properly on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

"I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," said Boehner. "And, and, and my position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with."

That is just utter bullshit, period. Boehner knew, and to even the most casual observer in the know it was plainly obvious that no investigation was taking place, and therefore nothing was being done. This is a nice CYA ploy by Boehner to try to go on the local radio in your district to place the blame on others for Boehner's own failures. That doesn't work anymore. Too many people are dialed into the system.

This is simply a bush league attempt to mollify voters in Boehner's district (And a couple of others in the area where republicans are in real trouble) to try to push this past the upcoming election, pure damage control. And although I don't know if Boehner is in any real trouble in his district, the voters there should see it for what it is, a snow job.

Of course, it also goes without saying that Hastert is at fault too, but Boehner as well did nothing.

Found via Atrios

Bye John, Bye Denny

ABC news has just put up this exchange between Mark Foley and one of the teenage House pages that he had inappropriate contact with. From ABC News:

Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun

The messages also show the teen is, at times, uncomfortable with Foley's aggressive approach.

Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see

I don't know about you, but that sounds exactly like a man soliciting sex from a minor to me, and Hastert and Boehner covered up for this guy. They might not have known the depths of his depravity at that time, although I'm guessing that they did given the very short amount of time it took Boehner to try to throw Hastert under the bus.

It doesn't matter, they are both toast. They may stumble through re-election, but they have no shot whatsoever of returning to the republican leadership and as I wrote about Tom Delay, once you're on top, nobody goes back to being a lowly member of Congress. Only chumps do that.

What Are You Wearing

Well, well, well. It looks like the republican House leadership has been covering up for a known predator of children for over a year. US Rep Mark Foley resigned on Friday after it was reveled that he had sent sexually explicit IMs to several underage male pages. Not content with fucking this country's youth thirty years in the future with massive deficit spending, Foley decided to amp up the process.

There is no doubt in my mind that the entire republican House leadership knew about this. John Boehner basically admitted as much when he said that he had talked to Denny Hastert about it in April and Hastert was taking care of it probably in an attempt to throw Hastert under the bus to move up in the leadership in the next Congress, a statement he later retracted.

Well Mr Boehner, whether you talked to Hastert himself or just his office as you now state, after six months it was plainly obvious that it wasn't being "taken care of" and yet you were silent on the issue. You knew, you did nothing. That makes you complicit in covering this matter up. A leaders job is to, in fact lead, and with regards to this matter you showed none of the qualities one is to expect of a leader. Instead, like an ostrich, you shoved your head in the sand, most likely to try to hold seats in this election. You sir, should also resign.

This is what the republican party has become, partisanship above even protecting children from predators. Never again should these people be allowed to rule us.

Metaphors

As far as the execution of the Iraq War goes, this paragraph from the Washington Post sums up the war as a whole pretty well. From the Post:

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."

John Boehner said yesterday on Hardball that Congress was providing good oversight in the Iraq War and that several members had been to Iraq to personally oversee that things are going well and claimed they were. Perhaps on future trips we should house Boehner in the shit drip room though I doubt he would be able to see the trees for "the rain forest."

John Boehner, Idiot

On Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday, John Boehner was on to spew out many idiocies like Saddam was tied to 9/11 and al-Queda, but one in particular caught my ear. In defending the decision to invade Iraq, Boehner made the claim that Saddam Hussein "supported the training camps in North-East Iraq." He actually made this claim twice. Wrong.

Oh so wrong. The training camps Boehner was referring to fell under the no-fly zone in the autonomous Kurdish region. If Hussein would have tried to attack them either by land or ground, we would have attacked the Iraqi forces trying to do so. Those are the facts. In reality, we should have taken out these training camps before the Iraq war. We didn't, and a lot of the guys from those camps now don't have to hide up in the mountains anymore. They are fully integrated into the insurgency. You might recall one of the names of these guys reportedly training in these camps, Abu Masab al-Zarqawi. Yep, we could have killed him before the war, but for some unknown reason we failed to do so. That cost thousands of Iraqis and a number of coalition troops their lives.