It's tough to be John Boehner these days. I imagine being the weakest, most incompetent Speaker of the House in living memory and knowing that his Tea Party-driven caucus has him by the balls must eat away at him constantly and cause frequent restockings of his liquor cabinet. But it must be an especially stressfull time for him these days, what with elections coming up, his job on the line and his attempt, along with the rest of his caucus, to weasel out of the debt reduction agreements they all voted for. Not to mention the recent spending deal to avoid an October government shutdown, which no doubt pisses off the pack of kamikazes that make up the GOP House caucus. (And you wonder why the "sane" Republicans like Steve LaTourette are running for the exits.)
So you can understand if the Speaker is a little cranky and stressed out these days. And so you shouldn't be surprised if the result is he says ridiculous things like this during an interview today with Fox News Radio's Kilmeade and Friends, in response to Obama's comments about building the economy "from the middle class" and not "from the top down":
Boehner: "Sometimes I have to catch my breath and slow down because the rhetoric in this campaign is just so over the top. And that's because the President's policies have failed. Listen - 93% of Americans believe they're a part of the middle class. That's why you hear the President talk about the middle class every day, because he's talking to 93% of the American people. But the President has never created a job. He's never even had a real job for Christ's sake. And I can tell you from my dealing with him, he has no idea how the real world, that we actually live in, works."
Wow. Someone was off his meds, because the amount of bullshit spewed in that one paragraph could fertilize all of Iowa. (Listen to the clip
here, if you can stomach it.) And don't you just love how the Drunk Weepy Oompa-Loompa can decry "over the top rhetoric" and then claim Obama's never held a real job (invoking the Lord's name to boot - not very Christian of you!)?
I'll let the always indespensible Steve Benen do the retort:
For the record, Obama has been an attorney, a community organizer working with churches in communities hit by factory closings, a law professor, a state lawmaker, a federal lawmaker, and the president of the United States during a time of multiple crises. I'm curious, which of these jobs does Boehner consider fake?
I wonder, does this mean Boehner thinks his
own current job is fake? I mean, given he's a useless and incompetent Speaker of perhaps the worst House in living memory, it would be accurate, but does he hold Obama to the same standard as himself?
I don't know whether it's job stress or Mitt Romney's recent stumbles or Obama's recent focus on the middle class (something that's also made Jon Kyl rather cranky as well), but Boehner needs to calm down and not add to that "over the top rhetoric" that he's so upset about. And if the job's too much for him to handle, he might be advised to just hand it over to someone who knows how to do it right.
I'm sure Nancy would be glad to take it off your hands.