How John Boehner came to love the word ‘compromise’
What does it sound like when bullies discover that they’re losing a fight that they started, one that they’re likely to keep losing for the foreseeable future?
It sounds very much like this:
Unless he takes a more bipartisan approach to fiscal cliff negotiations, President Barack Obama “guarantees a permanent war” between Democrats and Republicans, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted Sunday.
“He wants to prove he can dominate,” Gingrich said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding that on fiscal cliff negotiations, Obama aims not to compromise, but to “block [House Speaker John] Boehner into collapse.”
Why the prediction of an endless partisan fight? “Because everybody on the right, at every level, sooner or later is going to get sick of it,” Gingrich said.
Correct me if I’m wrong — some will try to correct me though I’m right — but didn’t the Republicans start this all-out, scorched-earth permanent war thing? Wasn’t this whole thing their idea in the first place?
And now they beg for compromise?
It was almost exactly two years ago to the day that Speaker John Boehner made it clear that there would be no compromise in Washington. “I am not going to compromise my principles nor will I compromise the will of the American people,” he told Judy Woodruff of “60 Minutes”.
“You’re afraid of the word?” Woodruff asked.
“I reject the word,” the new speaker said.
Whatever his other failings, Gingrich knows first-hand the realities of being speaker. He knows what it’s like to have go searching for votes. So when he predicts, as he did Sunday, that “if Boehner works out an agreement with President Obama, it has to be an agreement that brings 120 or 140 House Democrats,” that tells you an awful lot.
A House majority requires 218 votes. If Boehner needs 120 to 140 Democrats to support an eventual deal, it means that close to two-thirds of his own party will probably be voting against the deal that he agrees to support. It means that Nancy Pelosi will have a lot to say about what that final package contains. And it means that the House GOP caucus will afterward find itself split between those RINOs who voted for the deal, and those hardliners who voted against it, with Boehner among those who supported it.
“(Boehner) can be the speaker of a block of Republicans working with Democrats or he can be the speaker of the hard right fighting the Democrats,” Gingrich said. “There’s no middle ground here. He will not carry the hard right for any deal.”
Again, this is a confrontation that congressional Republicans have wanted for years. They plotted and strategized to create just this opportunity, never imagining that when the moment came, they would be the ones pleading for compromise and a bit of political mercy.
And it doesn’t get any better in the immediate future. Next on the agenda when Congress returns?
Immigration reform, with Democrats pressing for a path to citizenship and Republicans again split between those who recognize the political and moral necessity of such a step, and those who, like Boehner two years ago, still reject the word “compromise”.
– Jay Bookman
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526 comments Add your comment
getalife
December 10th, 2012
1:34 pm
Georgia,
PST?
Kamchak ~ Thug from the Steppes
December 10th, 2012
1:35 pm
What did you patent cat?
I’m thinking some kind of gizmo to open the box from the inside.
getalife
December 10th, 2012
1:36 pm
Kam,
I’m thinking bumper stickers.
JKL2
December 10th, 2012
1:36 pm
RB- I think we should just let him have everything he wants and when the wheels fall off, just say “I told you that would happen”
I’m with you. Bring on the pain.
josef
December 10th, 2012
1:37 pm
Howdy, Day Crew…
Looks like they’re some issues here that have to do with compromise, all right…seems here on the blog everybody is a politician!
So, how is everybody?
Joe Hussein Mama
December 10th, 2012
1:37 pm
Doggone, thank you for clarifying.
Stevie Ray
December 10th, 2012
1:38 pm
Doggone/GA
December 10th, 2012
1:05 pm
So PelosiCare is an example of compromise? I’d sure like to understand exactly how that dog hunts..this crap deal will cause more fiscal havoc than anything currently on the books…how is that example of compromise?
getalife
December 10th, 2012
1:39 pm
jk,
We tried your way and the wheels did fall off.
The pain happened under w and you want more?
Stevie Ray
December 10th, 2012
1:40 pm
JKL2
December 10th, 2012
1:36 pm
Agreed….I’d love to see the GOP stand aside and give DEMS everything they want…what could possibly be the harm in that? After all, he’s got it all figured out and how dare you question that? Geez
getalife
December 10th, 2012
1:42 pm
stevie,
When the Dems win the house, they will get everything they want so you will get your wish.
Erwin's cat
December 10th, 2012
1:42 pm
Jay – One with a horn that poops skittles would be fine…it doesn’t have to be able fly…Thanks
Erwin's cat
December 10th, 2012
1:43 pm
crap…what blog am I on again?
getalife
December 10th, 2012
1:45 pm
“One with a horn that poops skittles”
That is one weird patent.
Welcome to the Occupation
December 10th, 2012
1:59 pm
Stevie Ray: “This concept of “economic justice”…can you tell me what that looks like?”
It looks a lot like post-War Europe in some way, to name one example. Strong social safety net. Education and health care as a right. Capitalism held – relatively – in check. Bankers not simply in a revolving door with political power. You know, basically about the diametrical opposite to what we see around us here today in just about every respect.
JKL2
December 10th, 2012
2:05 pm
taxpayer- JKL2 sure seems to be intimately familiar with free stuff.
It would be nice if more people worried about where their money actually goes to. Few people know how to budget in our credit card society and the government is an off-the-charts offender. I guess these people didn’t get your memo:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/12/2000-obama-supporters-lined-up-to-get-free-housing-get-pepper-sprayed-by-police-video/
Thulsa Doom
December 10th, 2012
2:13 pm
Instead, I’d rather agitate and build a world founded on” economic justice”-Welcome to the occupation
So who determines what “economic justice” constitutes? You? These arbitrary and vague terms like “economic justice” and even a simple word like “fairness” means different things to different people. Your version of “economic justice” may mean more successful people giving you a share of what they produced and created.
“Economic justice” to someone like a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs may mean reaping the rewards of starting a business with not a damn thing, working out of your garage, and eventually building that business into a multi billion dollar company.
Its sad that people like you that don’t have the drive, ambition, and the sheer balls to go out and get what you want in life. Instead you want to agitate and use the power of the vote to steal your share from people who did. And you do it in the name of “economic justice”. More like economic thievery.
JKL2
December 10th, 2012
2:13 pm
getalife- The pain happened under w and you want more?
What part of “radically transforming our nation” are you having trouble with? Did obama leave the “pain” part out of it for you? Collapsing our country actually falls right into his plan, so I’d think you would be happy about it.
Thulsa Doom
December 10th, 2012
2:18 pm
RB- I think we should just let him have everything he wants and when the wheels fall off, just say “I told you that would happen”
RB and JKL2,
I said the same thing last week. We should just let the Dems have everthing they want and let the denizens of the Bookman blog rejoice. Then went the country implodes in the next few years we can just look at the Dems on here and say “What are you upset about? You voted for it.”
JKL2
December 10th, 2012
2:35 pm
Thulsa- Then when the country implodes in the next few years we can just look at the Dems on here and say “What are you upset about? You voted for it.
With the 47%ers now running the country, I’m starting to believe the only way to slap them back to reality is to let them suffer as they have not known in their lifetime. I just hope we have enough left to pick up the peices before they do “radically transform” us into something we’ll never recover from.
Welcome to the Occupation
December 10th, 2012
2:44 pm
Thulsa Doom: “So who determines what “economic justice” constitutes? You? ”
Yeah. Basically. Me and people like me. I want to take power away from people, people like Lloyd Blankfein and other parasites on society.
“These arbitrary and vague terms like “economic justice””
Nothing vague about it at all. It means that education is guaranteed and health care is freely provided and capitalists walk around with shackles on their ankles, because they cannot be trusted (as they’ve proven over and over again).
It means that heads of firms do not make hundreds of times the amount the average workers at their firms make. See? Very concrete. Easily measured stuff.
So nothing could be further from the truth.
It is YOUR ideology – “free market” bosh – that is based on vague fluffy ideas that get blown to bits by the slightest exposure to really existing conditions. And it happens again, and again, and again….
Welcome to the Occupation
December 10th, 2012
2:46 pm
Thulsa Doom:
But you’re right to be a little hot under the collar. I and people like me really do represent a mortal threat to the ideology you espouse. So I’ll give you that. You’re right to be a little bothered by it. You should be.
Mr Right
December 10th, 2012
3:16 pm
Welcome to the Occupation
December 10th, 2012
1:22 pm
JKL2: “obama: who needs a fish. I got fish here. free fish fo everyone.”
I’m still waiting for information on where to pick up my “free fish”. I haven’t heard a peep.
I think maybe it’s the same place you can get your free Obama phones!
Butch
December 10th, 2012
3:57 pm
Welcome – “Nothing vague about it at all. It means that education is guaranteed…”
Isn’t is already? Maybe you meant free college after high school? Oh wait, in GA, we have that too if you can make the grades (which over half of Hope recipients cannot once they get to college)…
The opportunity is there if you want to work for it. I stay involved with my kids’ education in middle school, HS, and college….if everyone did that, do you think we would be where we are today? As a parent, you do not need to be perfect but it sure helps to be involved.
Welcome to the Occupation
December 10th, 2012
5:15 pm
Butch: ” It means that education is guaranteed… / Isn’t is already? ”
Haven’t you been following the news in the last year or so, particularly local and state-level? Georgia is among many where a push for privatization is carving up the education system and doling it out to the highest bidder, with the entire process being reconfigured along heavily class-influenced lines. The committment to providing excellent education to the ENTIRE population is under attack as never before.
And that’s not even to mention higher education. Need I even recite all the ways a fair shot at universal higher ed is under attack?
Oscar
December 10th, 2012
8:17 pm
Welcome – You are right and it’s a sad thing to see.
Joel Edge
December 11th, 2012
6:36 am
“but didn’t the Republicans start this all-out, scorched-earth permanent war thing?”
No. You’re the same age as me, Jay. I’m sure you remember the Reagan years, the Bush 1 years.