Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

With government shutdown imminent, John Boehner … goes golfing??

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Demonstrating that he is, among other things, colossally tone-deaf, Speaker of the House John Boehner decided to hit the links the other day during a trip to Florida.  This photo (HT Kos) is apparently not of that precise event, since it was (surprise!) closed to the press, but it does show off Boehner’s splendid legs.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that Boehner had no trouble criticizing a few years ago, when Bill Clinton was president and the government was again in danger of shutting down.

In the run up to the last government shutdown in 1995, Boehner criticized then-President Bill Clinton for playing a round while Congress continued its work.

“Now is the time, not to play golf as the president did yesterday, now is the time to act. The president has talked about balancing the budget,” Boehner said at the time. “But so far, the president has offered no leadership and the president has offered no plan.”

Now, to be fair, Boehner has offered a “plan,” at least in the technical sense.  But his plan is a joke.

The [House-sponsored] CR [Continuing Resolution] would extend government financing for two weeks after Obama signed the bill and its cuts would be prorated to reflect the $100 billion in cuts approved in last week’s CR. In other words, the $4 billion in savings would be roughly equal to the cuts the CR called for if carried out for just two weeks….

“The Republicans’ so-called compromise is nothing more than the same extreme package the House already handed the Senate, just with a different bow,” said Jon Summers, [Senate majority leader Harry] Reid’s communications director. “This isn’t a compromise; it’s a hardening of their original position. This bill would simply be a two-week version of the reckless measure the House passed last weekend. It would impose the same spending levels in the short term as their initial proposal does in the long term, and it isn’t going to fool anyone. Both proposals are non-starters in the Senate.”

Perhaps it’s time to start a betting pool on how long Boehner, who is apparently neither able to control his caucus nor to craft legislation that has any prayer of becoming law, retains the Speaker’s gavel.

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Comments

  2. Every time a politician goes golfing, people lose their minds.

    <

    p>I don’t like Boehner, but the guy works plenty. He has a leisure day. Leave the dude alone.  

    • Why?  The government is nearing its most significant crisis in 15 years, largely thanks to him.  He is one of the three or four most powerful people in the United States.  To listen to him and his allies, the country is in a dire condition and in desperate need of immediate help.

      <

      p>And yet he’s got time for 18 holes?  No sale.  He doesn’t get “leisure days” like he used to when he wasn’t Speaker.  He’s got to take the bitter with the sweet.

      • It’s pretty much what the base wants.  The necessary parts of the government stay open, everything else closes down.

        <

        p>So yes, he’s golfing because he really doesn’t care.

      • These guys in DC have been taking their vacations and Congressional breaks for the last few years “right on time” regardless of what’s going on, Republicans and Democrats. Look at the decisions that are happening right now and they all go on break for a week. It’s unconscionable. However, I think you are being picky by picking Boehner out of a large bi-partisan crowd on “tone-deaf” pols.

  3. Of the lowest moment of Bush’s presidency, not when he said Mission Accomplished, but when he said ‘now watch this drive’. Nothing to me symbolized his complete indifference to the terrible human costs of his actions in Iraq, not to mention the care and welfare of our troops. Similarly, John Boehner has certainly drifted and deviated from his working days as barkeep. Obama is an elitist because he was a professor and shops at Whole Foods while the wine tasting, country clubbing, golf outing Boehner gets a pass? Please. I bet he lotions his hands and they are as smooth as silk, lest they chafe under his golf gloves.  

  4. From Matt Taibbi’s profile of Boehner in Rolling Stone:

    In the Nineties, Boehner started weekly meetings with a group of lobbyists, originally known as “The Thursday Group,” that helped him develop close ties to companies like Citigroup, MillerCoors, UPS, Goldman Sachs, Google and R.J. Reynolds. And what does Boehner do with these lobbyists? Well, one thing we know he does is play golf – shitloads and shitloads of golf, which he apparently likes a lot more than, well, working. “Lazy” is how one former congressional aide describes Boehner’s work ethic. “Not the hardest worker,” said Joe Scarborough, former congressman and current MSNBC host. Congressional sources say that Boehner likes to knock off early, and that seems to square with his record, which reveals a real passion – for the links. He once went on 180 junkets in six years, most of them golf trips, and reportedly copped to playing 100 rounds a year at a time when he was collecting a six-figure salary, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, to serve in Congress. His political action committee spent almost $83,000 on golf events in 2009, and over the past 18 months he has run up a $67,000 tab at the Ritz-Carlton golf resort in Naples, Florida. He flew on a corporate jet 45 times between 2000 and 2007, and took at least 41 other corporate-sponsored trips in the past decade.

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