An odd silence from The Arizona Republican on the resignation of John Boehner

Weeper of the House John Boehner announced early Friday morning that he would be resigning his speaker position and from Congress at the end of October.

The TanMan was forced out by the radical extremists of the farther-far-right GOP House Freedom Caucus, co-founded by Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ). The Freedom Caucus doesn’t have a website or official roster, but the Five Thirty Eight blog put together a list of members. It includes Arizona Congressmen Matt Salmon, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert, and Trent Franks.

ArizonaRepublicanRemarkably, The Arizona Republican, aka The Arizona Republic, the mouthpiece of the GOP establishment in Arizona, has not commented on this “seismic” event either by editorial or commentary from its stable of opinion writers. It is an odd silence.

Others in the GOP establishment have lashed out at these radical extremist mutineers. Furious Boehner allies lash out:

A fired-up House Ethics Committee Chairman Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), speaking not long after Boehner dropped the bombshell at a Friday conference meeting that he’ll leave Congress at the end of next month, ripped into hard-line conservatives.

He accused them of opposing Boehner at every turn, and noted they have “never had a horse of their own.”

“Any jackass can kick down a barn door. It takes a carpenter to hang one. We need a few more carpenters around here. Everybody knows it,” Dent said off the House floor.

Leadership allies are frustrated by what they see as a repeated exercise in futility.

They argue that the lawmakers who repeatedly tangled with Boehner aren’t team players, and they said a new leadership team shouldn’t cater to them.

* * *

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a member of Boehner’s inner circle, suggested a new leadership team should implement new conference rules that would make the chamber more functional.

“You just can’t continue to have a super-ultra-minority continue to try to dictate what happens in the House of Representatives. It’s a big problem,” Nunes said.

* * *

Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) referred to the group of hardliners who had been making demands of Boehner in that fight as the “shutdown caucus.”

“Those within our party who insist on continuing to divide us and shut down the government, they can take a small victory today. It’s unfortunate,” Jolly said.

* * *

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, acknowledged that they likely won’t have the votes to install one of their own into the leadership hierarchy. But the Freedom Caucus expects they’ll have the power to sway who can win.

“I don’t think that the conservative wing of the party has enough mass to get one of our own elected. We certainly have enough mass to influence the outcome,” Mulvaney said.

The Arizona Republican, the mouthpiece of the GOP establishment in Arizona, should be tearing the hide off Arizona’s four radical extremist members of the mutinous GOP House Freedom Caucus, and pledging to defeat them in the GOP primary or at the general election next year. These four GOP Congressmen are nothing more than bomb throwing radical anarchists who have no interest in responsible governance.

The Arizona Republican frequently asserts that there are moderate, responsible Republicans in Arizona, “no really we swear.” Well, if that is what the editors want in Arizona, they have an obligation to make it their mission to remove Salmon, Gosar, Schweikert and Franks from office, for the good of Arizona and for the good of the country.

Otherwise, The Arizona Republican should just admit that all it really cares about is that candidates with an (R) behind their name get elected to office, regardless of how destructive and batshit crazy they are.

1 thought on “An odd silence from The Arizona Republican on the resignation of John Boehner”

  1. Regarding Republican loyalties, President Clinton said it best: “Republicans don’t fall in love, they fall in line”. Apparently the Arizona Republic would rather stand in line.

    The insane wing of the Republican party becoming prominent over the past few decades can be traced back to their vaunted 11th Commandment “Thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow Republican”. Faithful adherence to their 11th has enabled their party to be infested with the likes of the notables you cited in you post because their more moderate members failed to speak up.

    And people wonder why the Republicans are incapable of governing.

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