Redstate

By rhatican Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Leaving aside the glaring substantive problems of John Boehner’s championing No Child Left Behind as chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee (which calls into very serious question any of his claims that he believes the federal government should play a smaller role in our lives) and his support of the Medicare drug giveaway (still dumbfounding), shouldn’t he be disqualified simply on the bases of his conduct (or lack thereof) with respect to Mark Foley and his declaring, just days before the election (and, of course, the man’s firing), that Rumsfeld was the best Secretary of Defense the country has had in twenty-five years?

I don’t care what anyone says, the e-mails by themselves should have been quite enough to alarm anyone into insisting on a thorough investigation, no matter how much it might have endangered the majority status of the Republicans. Add to that Boehner’s changing story as to whether he told Hastert (first yes, then no, then yes), and I’d say we have a genuine squirrel on our hands. At the very least shouldn’t members have access to the Ethics Committee’s report on the matter before deciding whether to make him leader again?

Also, as it is clear that Republicans are going to have to stand up to the Bush administration when it inevitably starts cutting deals with Pelosi & Co., do we really want as House leader a guy who has been so willing to carry water for the White House? He went on CNN and told Wolf Blitzer, just days before the election, that Rumsfeld was the best Secretary of Defense we’ve had in twenty-five years (a time frame which, by the way, encroaches on Weinberger’s tenure) and that we should blame the generals for the mess in Iraq. Either the White House told him to do that without revealing that Rumsfeld was a goner (in which case they think he’s a dupe) or he knew Rumsfeld would be fired all along and cynically spewed that foolishness to the detriment of all Republican candidates. What did Boehner know and when did he know it?