Speaker John Boehner Resigned, He was not Ousted.

In a transcript from the Rush Limbaugh radio show dated Sept 28th, 2016, Mr. Limbaugh says that John Boehner was ousted from the third most powerful position in the United States. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Boehner, according to the US Constitution, was third in line of succession to the Presidency.

The cause for the Speaker to resign was not stated by the Mr. Boehner. But the headline to Rush Limbaugh’s transcript is that the third most powerful man in America was ousted by forces lead by Senator Ted Cruz. According to this theory, Senator Ted Cruz was an instigator and advocate for conservative Republican congressmen to consistently and persistently oppose Speaker Boehner’s leadership. He did this, according to Limbaugh, because Senator Cruz had no support for his conservative views among fellow senators. Therefore, he decided to go to the other house, Mr. Boehner’s house, and spoil it.

The quote from the transcript is the following:

“The point is, Ted Cruz was aware of all this, and he decided there was no way since he was so vastly outnumbered in the Senate, that what he instead did was to work with the conservative members in the House to strengthen them, to focus them. Not that they needed it, but just to form some unity and have a coordinated effort that was aimed at Boehner’s resignation, since Cruz was not gonna be able to engineer a similar thing in the Senate because he was basically a party of one.”

The transcript relates how Mr. Limbaugh rationalizes all of this as being a good thing. He has his opinion. Why not, he gets paid millions of dollars to tell us what he thinks. But if he is correct in his opinion of this event, I do not see it as credit to Senator Cruz but a shame. I guess you could credit Cruz with being savvy in understanding, as Limbaugh says, that in the Senate he is a party of one among 100 elected Senators. I guess you could praise him for being smart enough to know that he could gather the discontented, unhappy, miserable conservative congressmen who did not like Speaker Boehner and form them into a focused, united group of mostly freshmen congressmen who in their disgruntlement could work in a coordinated effort to oust the Speaker. I guess you can compliment him for subverting the office of Speaker of the House of Representative instead of fighting and winning better credibility in his own house, the Senate. But if Mr. Limbaugh is correct and according to the transcript, ” So there’s any number of people who you might…if you want to consider this in a doling-out-of-credit sense, Cruz is right there at the top.”

All of us wonder about the resignation of Speaker Boehner. He also will not stand for election to his congressional seat. He is retiring. It seems to me that there was a day not long ago when powerful forces were in motion to do something or other. The accomplishment of it, back then, may have involved the resignation or the retirement of some powerful person. However, I seem to remember, that there was a sense of grace and largeness on the part of the winners over the vanquished. It may have been called, back then, a sense of class or classiness. The winners were the first ones to come out and congratulate the defeated with words of praise for their service, and with a reminder of their many accomplishments and the excellence of their career and the honorable and praiseworthy things for which they stood. But according to Mr. Limbaugh, this sense of class and honorable victory is not true of the Value Voter’s Summit in Washington (DC) where, as Limbaugh states, (Senator Rubio is speaking) and says: …Just a few minutes ago Speaker Boehner announced that he will be resigning..AUDIENCE (wild Applause) Rush: Now, that (applause) went on and on and on. It was over the top. And this was something that a number of people have been attempting to make happen for months now going into years.

This writer is aware of the advertisements on Facebook and Internet to get rid of Speaker Boehner. I have always wondered who these disgruntled and discontented people were. I even imagined that the advertisements were planted by Democrats to defeat the Republicans. Now, I know that it is something (as Limbaugh states) ” a number of people have been attempting to do for years.” Really!? Is there a secret group of political outsiders trying to subvert the political process? Were there powerful people, like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Senator Cruz, trying to revolt and oust the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I am not one of them. In fact, I get very nervous around discontented, disgruntled, malcontents who are in positions of power and are fighting against their fellows who are in positions of power.

Are they so sure that they would do a better job? Are they so sure that if their man gets the power he will not use that power against the revolutionaries who put him or her there? Do they want the power for themselves? Are they willing to blame the so called leadership for their own inability to cooperate and focus on passing meaningful solutions to the nation’s problems- preferring to blame, as Mr. Limbaugh does, ” The …insider class, or ruling class or whatever you call it elite mind-set.” I wonder about people who are willing to subvert and collaborate in a focused, united, cooperative campaign against someone else, are they going to be better or worse than those they ousted? After all, they got to the top by subverting the authority of those they replaced. They can expect the same for themselves, unless they are the first to attack and remove the attackers.

Limbaugh goes on to state his agenda for the ouster of Majority Leader McConnell. He uses a quote from somebody else to hide behind, Gerald Selb, of the Wall Street Journal, who claims that the so called Tea Party forces are increasing their power and loosening the Republican (so called) establishment’s grip. So, after all, this transcript of the Rush Limbaugh show is actually a self proclaimed testimonial to Rush Limbuagh’s success at fostering the take over of the Republican party by his brand of conservatives?

Sean Hannity’s Problem with John Boehner

On the December 16 Sean Hannity show, he once again attacked Speaker John Boehner. It was in a segment with former congressman Allen West. Hannity attacked Speaker Boehner for not consulting the so called conservative base of the Republican party. Hannity has a serious personal problem with John Boehner. Why do I say this? It is because at every opportunity Sean brings up Boehner as not doing what Hannity wants him to do. Speaking of Presidential politics, Sean Hannity repeatedly raised Speaker Boehner as an example of weak leadership, poor judgement and a refusal to adhere to conservative Republican party principles. One had to wonder why Sean Hannity thought that John Boehner was running for President? One wondered why he thought that speaker Boehner should be obeying the dictates of Senators Cruz and Lee? There was no opposition to Sean Hannity from LTC West or from Karl Rove. They were either silent (Rove) or totally agreed (West). This writer likes Congressman West, and I was disappointed by his obsequious head nodding to Hannity’s attacks on Speaker Boehner.
I remember how the conservative talk show hosts helped to win the 2012 election for President Obama. First, they talked about Obama every day while ignoring Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. This meant three hours of talk about President Obama from Rush Limbaugh, three hours from Sean Hannity, and three hours from Mark Levin. Second, they did not endorse Romney/Ryan until the very end, and then only with reservations and warnings. All three called Romney a RINO, which means a Republican In Name Only. They helped defeat the Republican candidates in 2012. Their constant rant against Romney in the primary season could not be withdrawn in the election cycle and was not forgotten by their millions of listeners.
So, now, we have all three attacking the Republicans, namely Speaker Boehner, because he will not conduct himself in obedient adherence to what Hannity, Limbaugh or Levin tell him. This infuriates Sean Hannity and he daily brings Speaker Boehner into every discussion. Tonight, at least, he did not call Speaker Boehner a coward or someone who acts cowardly. Hannity did that last week. Instead he called Speaker Boehner, weak, uninspiring, and incapable of enforcing the conservative Republican agenda on the House of Representatives.
Sean Hannity has a personal prejudice against Speaker John Boehner. Because of his persistent harping on his dislike for Boehner his feelings seem like irrational anger. Sean Hannity has to stop his relentless small-minded and highly personal attacks against John Boehner. He cannot hide his dislike for the speaker by using politics. He has a problem with Boehner. He daily reminds his viewers of his problem. One wonders if he thinks that we all agree with him or that he can bludgeon us into agreeing with him. He cannot, and should stop treating his viewers as though they are stupid.

John Boehner is not a Coward

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/hannity-rips-cowardly-boehner-being-145947372.html

Mr. Hannity is a Gruber. He started the show with the obvious intention to attack Speaker Boehner. He then proceeded to tell each guest that Speaker Boehner was wrong to work toward a budget. Mr. Hannity said that he believed the House of Representatives could have gone with a Continuing Resolution (CR) which would put them into the New Year when they would have super majorities in both Houses. However, Mr. Hannity did not explain what Hannity would do about balking Democrats and rebellious Tea Party Conservatives. He also did not explain how putting off the budget deal would have better served the nation. He seemed to think that the only reason the Republicans had a majority was to defeat Democrats and thwart President Obama. It seemed to this writter that Mr. Hannity proposed a totally partisan answer to the budget without regard for Democrats. However, this writer thinks that a key message from the 2014 election was to get Congress working again and not to merely promote a Conservative Republican political agenda.

It is impossible for anyone to describe this episode of Hannity as “fair and balanced.” It was a small minded intolerant attack on the Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was personal and Mr. Hannity made no apologies for the “mano y Mano” nature of his assault. But is it really fair to attack Speaker in this way? The speaker was not there to defend himself and as a public official he has very little recourse for an answer. For the Speaker of the House of Representatives to directly answer Mr. Hannity would be to give Hannity way too much respect. This is especially true since Sean Hannity acted so disrespectully toward John Boehner by never addresing his comments to the “Speaker”. Instead, he preferred to use the dismissive title “Boehner”. But in references to Rep. Pelosi, he called her by her first and last name.

Does anyone need to even honor Mr. Hannity’s insulting use of the word “coward” or “cowardly”? Such comments by Mr. Hannity should be rejected and this viewer thinks that an apology is required.

All the guests on Hannity were partisans and could be expected to agreed with Sean, and they did. The one guest to disagree was Mr. Karl Rove, who was cut off by what (I hope) was a hard commercial break and not Mr. Hannity’s control board?!

One last word from here; Mr. Hannity accused Speaker Boehner, who is third in line to the Presidency, of being a Gruber. This reference to thinking that you could fool the American people because they are stupid, is more true of Mr. Hannity than Speaker Boehner. Mr. Hannity seems to feel that he can come on the TV, attack the Speaker of the House of Representatives as a coward, as acting cowardly and of being a Gruber. Well, Hannity can do that but at the risk of infuriating his viewers and of tarnishing the reputation of the news network for which he works. He further hurts himself because its shows his personal and passionate dislike for Mr. John Boehner. At the least, Mr. Sean Hannity should stop such shameful treatment of Speaker. Maybe all future reporting on the Speaker should be handled by someone else.