Print This Post Print This Post

Nov

23

How Boehner lives to die another day as House Minority Leader

Filed Under Congress, conservatives, Government, leadership, Ohio, Politics, PostWH2008, Republicans | 1 Comment

From the first that I heard of how Ohio Congressman John Boehner (OH-8) was going to  live to die another day as House Minority Leader, I’ve been wondering, “huh?” but I chalked it up to just being a left of center blogger who finds Boehner’s perpetual tan and tears really…unique.

However, now, there’s a column in The Daily Beast that affirms my reaction as not so odd.  From “Circular Firing Squad: The Republican Suicide Watch”:

The party is wounded, perhaps even mortally. It is certainly bleeding money and talent. Arizona’s John Shadegg openly opines to the media that donors won’t give “another penny.” Yet Boehner’s best idea to help the party is to help himself by bullying his way to reelection. Resignation was in order, but instead he demanded another two years without paying a penalty for his clumsiness over the last three years and his colossal, unforgivable, and damning failure to stop Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) lie the week of September 29.

Is Boehner a dullard and quitter like Marshal Pétain? Or is he a vain crow like Charles de Gaulle? Or is he the worst of both, a defeatist with a devious ego?

At 59, a nine-term representative from the suddenly blue team suburbs between Cincinnati and Dayton, Boehner has no future worth debating. Not a fighter like the underestimated Dick Nixon, not a loudmouth like the predictable Newt Gingrich, not a tactician like the ambitious Mike Pence, Boehner inherited the Republican majority from the disgraced Texan Tom DeLay, who sold the party cheaply to gamblers, grifters, and Russian gangsters. Boehner did nothing effectively or worth noting as he led the power-drunken rabble to defeat in the 2006 cycle. Since then, he has manufactured excuses like pine cushions. It’s DeLay’s fault, and why doesn’t he go away? It’s Roy Blunt’s fault, and we inherited the dope, anyway. It’s Dick Cheney and the Bush whackos. It’s Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Jack Murtha, and the Dem whackos. It’s the war. No, it’s not the war, we’re winning the war, aren’t we? And then along came a genuine crisis that was not outside his reach, Paulson’s TARP. What did Boehner do? He believed Paulson’s lie that the $700 billion TARP was a miracle to save the nation. And then he let Paulson lie to the House that without TARP there would be rioting in the major cities. Boehner was too busy kissing the hem of Secretary Big Lie to hear the laughter from the Goldman and Morgan bankers. He was also busy believing it was his responsibility to save his party’s bumbling presidential candidate, John McCain.

And that’s just the wind up to this:

How long until it comes to the loyal remnant who just reelected him that Boehner is the same systemic problem as the obdurate stick-pin George W. Bush and his Texas cronies, the treacherous John McCain and his whining collies Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, and the cheerless zek clinic called the Republican Senate? There is no hope with John Boehner. He surrendered the first time the Goldman Sachs enemy showed up wearing iron hats.

But hey, I’m still just a left of center blogger who remembers Boehner most for his tan tone and tears.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:50 pm November 23rd, 2008 in Congress, conservatives, Government, leadership, Ohio, Politics, PostWH2008, Republicans | 1 Comment 

Print This Post Print This Post

Nov

23

Memory power: Never lament lack of notes for writing assignments

Filed Under Writing | Comments Off

With more than a few writing assignments, I’ve either been unable to take notes (because I didn’t have pen and paper or a computer or other note-taking device), prohibited from taking notes, lost my notes or my notes were otherwise rendered worthless.

But for years, I’ve taken the very attitude that David Lynch espouses in his responses to a couple of questions from Deborah Solomon in today’s New York Times Magazine:

I hear you’re getting married again. 
In February. I’m marrying a girl named Emily Stofle.

Is she an actress? Was she in any of your films? 
She was just in one, “Inland Empire.”

You’ve been married three times before? 
Yeah, it’s real great.

Why would someone who feels so generally blissed out marry so many times? 
Well, we live in the field of relativity. Things change.

Do you plan to film your wedding? 
No. It’s a hassle. So many things these days are made to look at later. Why not just have the experience and remember it?

Because most people have the experience and forget it. 
Some things we forget. But many things we remember on the mental screen, which is the biggest screen of all.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:53 pm November 23rd, 2008 in Writing | Comments Off 

Print This Post Print This Post

Nov

23

[video] SNL’s Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton on HRC’s appointment

Filed Under Hillary Clinton, Humor, Media | 2 Comments

Politically incorrect? Who? Me? It made me laugh. What can I say. Watch it on NBC. Darrell Hammond has this so down.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:55 am November 23rd, 2008 in Hillary Clinton, Humor, Media | 2 Comments 

"));