The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Conservatives: Relax About Boehner

Posted on | April 13, 2011 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

I’m totally with Red State on this one.

No, they shouldn’t. I think John Boehner is more conservative than Eric Cantor, who’d most likely replace him, but Boehner’s leadership has been crap lately. This deal that got us $38.5 billion in cuts, turns out to not only have gotten us $14 billion in cuts, but also raised the baseline on spending. That’s a fancy way of saying it will wind up costing us money to get these cuts and put the Democrats in a better position to begin the 2012 budget fight.

Boehner just seems off his game. He is advised by Barry Jackson, an amiable guy from the Bush Administration whose first major policy fight as Boehner’s Chief of Staff following the untimely death of Paula Nowakowski was to make sure support for traditional marriage got stripped from the GOP’s Pledge to Nowhere or whatever they called it.

Listen, ye Tea Parties: you did not give Boehner a veto-override majority in the House. You did not provide a GOP Senate Majority Leader.
You go to political war with the majority you have, not the majority you might want or wish to have at a later time, to paraphrase Rumsfeld. It’s all well and good to have people setting expectations low, and mocking the details as they leak out of the stinky diaper.
However don’t wear yourself out on the 112th Congress. This election was never more than a restraining order.
So yes, let us vent, but keep the blood pressure moderate. This Congressional rear-guard action, while tactically important, is strategically of less value than the 2012 election. We’re not fixing the deficit, much less the national debt, in a single Congress. It’s borderline miraculous to focus the discussion on hahrd things like the deficit, when people want to fret more important things like birth certificates.
So let’s keep up a measured pressure on the GOP, but not wear ourselves out on ground that simply will not be fruitful.

Category: Dan Riehl, GOP, Red State, Uncategorized

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