How long can John Boehner survive as Speaker of the House?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It is increasingly clear that the TanMan, John Boehner, the Tea-Publican's Weeper of the House, is the weakest Speaker of the House in memory.

There have been powerful Speakers whom no member of Congress would ever dare to challenge out of fear of having their committee assignments stripped and their office relocated to a janitor's closet. These Speakers included such legendary giants as Joseph Cannon, Nicholas Longworth, Sam Rayburn, and Tip O'Neill.

Even disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay exercised more power over their caucus than does John Boehner. [corrected]

John Boehner will not walk among the giants. In fact, his days as Weeper of the House may be numbered. Boehner's Tea Party lieutenants are politically ambitious and are plotting a palace coup to force Boehner out as Speaker of the House so they can succeed to his post. The most aggressive is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). This Brutus keeps stabbing his Caesar in the back publicly, and Boehner just keeps taking it through his tears.

Last Thursday, President Obama asked the top eight officials in Congress — four from each party — and Vice President Biden to express a preference about a debt-reduction target. Political Animal – The incredible shrinking Speaker:

Of the 10 people in the room, eight, including all the Democrats, said they want to go big. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was one of them, “enthusiastically” endorsing the notion of a grand bargain, telling Republican lawmakers that bold action is necessary, and that this is why he wanted to be Speaker in the first place.

Two of the 10 balked. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said there’s no point in trying to strike a grand bargain because rank-and-file Republicans will never accept a compromise on revenue.

As of Saturday, Boehner abandoned his plan and came around to Cantor’s and Kyl’s way of thinking. The Speaker discovered his caucus just wasn’t willing to follow him.

As Steve Benen correctly notes, " It’s supposed to be within Boehner’s power to simply tell his caucus what they have a responsibility to do, and demand their fealty. But a leader with no followers is, by definition, weak. Boehner may be the Speaker, but as he’s quickly realizing, he’s taking the orders, not giving them."

As a substantive matter, the anti-tax extremism that dominates Republican politics is well past the point of being farcical. Given a chance to cut the debt by $4 trillion, GOP leaders who claim to be frantic about a non-existent debt crisis have been exposed as frauds.

But the political issue that stands out for me is realizing just how weak a Speaker Boehner really is.

He started this debt-limit process saying, “We’re going to have to deal with it as adults. Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.” Republicans proceeded to ignore him. This week, Boehner believed he had the power and influence to convince at least most of his caucus to rise to the occasion. Republicans proceeded to ignore this, too. Even the Speaker’s own leadership team didn’t want to follow him, and in the end, it looks like Cantor understood the extremist attitudes of the caucus far better than the Speaker did.

Steve Benen continues, Political Animal – The incredible shrinking Speaker, cont’d:

By at least one account, the Speaker was “enthusiastically” endorsing the notion of a grand bargain and told his Republican colleagues that this is why he wanted to be Speaker in the first place.

Boehner, humiliated, reversed course on Saturday night, after learning that his own caucus refused to follow his lead. How bad is it? This bad.

“It’s crazy to think the speaker was considering a trillion [dollars] in tax increases. After all, we’re the anti-tax party,” said one veteran Republican lawmaker close to leadership. “Cantor brought him, the economy and our party back from the abyss. Cantor is strengthened, clearly. And it’s another example of the speaker almost slipping beyond the will of the GOP conference.” 

Note, that’s not a quote from a Democrat trying to drive a wedge between the House Speaker and his caucus; that’s a quote from a long-time Republican member of Congress who’s “close” to the GOP leadership.

By another account, when the 10 participants in the talks reconvened yesterday at the White House, Boehner “basically just sat there,” and let House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) do all the talking.

[Ezra Klein similarly reports. The humbling of John Boehner – The Washington Post.]

* * *

The next question, though, is what the consequences will be for the Speaker’s weakness. It’s hard to imagine the GOP forcing him out, but it’s equally hard to imagine the party putting up with his recent willingness to find common ground and compromise.

Either way, Boehner’s influence appears to be evaporating quickly. Under the circumstances, I’m not even sure why he should be negotiating on behalf of his caucus.

Should the Tea-Publicans intentionally fail to raise the federal debt ceiling and cause the U.S. to default on its debts for the first time in U.S. history, the Weeper of the House is going to have to fall on his sword for his failure, or the Tea Party conspirators, like the Roman Senate, will stab their Caesar to death (metaphorically speaking one hopes) and remove him from his position to elevate one of their own members.

John Boehner will be the "biggest loser" of this "grand bargain." The best that he can hope for is to survive his caucus-inflicted wounds but be powerless for the remainder of this Congress. And to be honest, that does not do him, his caucus or this country any good in these difficult times. We cannot survive the Tea Party inmates taking over the asylum.