‘Unconditional Surrender’ - the Maddow Blog
About an hour after President Obama held a pretty impressive press conference at the White House, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) hosted a much briefer event — 5 minutes compared to 68 minutes — in which he made several odd-but-important claims.
To be sure, much of the rhetoric was the usual nonsense, which has become little more than annoying background noise. The Republican leader said, for example, the president “refuses to negotiate,” which is largely the opposite of what Obama actually said. Boehner also gave a brief lecture on “the way our government works,” as if it’s normal for a major party to ignore election results, shut down the government, and threaten a sovereign debt crisis unless its demands are met.
I was particularly amused when the Speaker said, “This isn’t about me and frankly, it’s not about Republicans. This is about saving the future for our kids and our grandkids.” Apparently the fight has become about deficit reduction, despite the fact that the deficit has already been cut in half; despite the fact that Boehner has rejected a series of bipartisan measures that would reduce it further; and despite the fact that Boehner voted to add Bush’s two tax cuts, two wars, and a Wall Street bailout to the national charge card.
But that wasn’t the really funny part. This was:
“So the president’s position that, ‘Listen, we’re not going to sit down and talk to you until you surrender,’ is just not sustainable…. What the president said today was, if there is unconditional surrender by Republicans, he’ll sit down and talk to us.”
This is the argument that raises legitimate questions about whether Boehner is simply in over his head — it’s quickly becoming apparent that he’s simply not well suited for the office he currently holds and not at all prepared for the responsibilities that have overwhelmed him.