It's Your Freakin' Problem, Vol. I've Lost Count

Ross Douthat, "Boehner, American Hero". January 5

FIRST, if I may take a moment, after an entire season thank God Dan Snyder and the Washington Football Club are back in the news as the cheap, thoughtless, entitled bastards we know them to be. I personally don't care if their record does determine every Presidential election. But granting Snyder a grain of respectability is the sort of thing that could ruin the karma of 400 million people.

Now then, the only way to dispose of this Douthat think piece and not spend any more time on it than it deserves is to have someone else blow it a raspberry. Even a shorter is too long, and anyway, I don't do 'em. But "John Boehner has, thankfully, saved the Republican party from the sort of people who elect John Boehner" would be one.

And who th' fuck cares? Four years ago Douthat "tried" to "reform" the Republican party, by lending it some of his hip, youthful sheen; that went over like lead Astroturf, aside from the fact that it got him the gig at the Times. Four months later he was recoiling from the Teabaggers. A month after that he was celebrating them. There is no reforming the Republican party. None. Because the problem with the Republican party is as much Ross Douthat, or John Boehner, as it is all those messy partisans Douthat and Boehner basically agree with. *

Look: there is no difference between Paul Ryan, who wants to find a cliff to drive over out of principle, and John Boehner, or Ross Douthat, who fully support the principles but don't want their fingerprints on the wheel when the wreck is found. Because those so-called principles are a crock, they've been clearly proven as such, they're rejected by most of the population, and Paul Ryan doesn't really believe them any stronger than do the "moderate" voices of his party. You gave up your ability to pretend moderation in exchange for two Reagan terms. You doubled down at every succeeding opportunity since. If you want to save the Republican party, leave it. Find common cause with centrist Democrats; Lord knows you've got enough. You're gonna have to admit that the only sovereignty over a woman's reproductive system belongs to her own brain, and you're going to have to admit that the government can do good things, and really ought to pay lip service to the poor, the sick, and the needy while it stockpiles carrier fleets. That is, you're going to have to appear sensible,, and you're going to have to get your Bronze Age impulses cut down to where they'll fit in your own garage again.

Go on. I dare you.

In the meantime, Ross-O, spare me the "dysfunctional government" routine. Your party hasn't had the slightest intention to be functional since before you were born.

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* Okay, so it may be that Boehner does not actually believe in anything whatsoever. We're not trying to solve metaphysical problems here.