I chanced across a news site called the Missoulian, sent to me by a comment-friend (the symbols I cannot reproduce here in my basic version of WordPress), which featured a headline in this article that reads:

Congress: House Speaker John Boehner unwilling to jeopardize his position

Pat Williams, Missoula

Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner and I are friends. We have seldom visited since I left the Congress in 1997, but during Boehner’s first years in the House I was the chairman of an education committee of which he was a member.

Boehner, despite our political differences, was attentive, engaged and always considering fresh ways, as he saw it, to improve the nation’s schools. I liked him and still do – although now I am troubled by the policy and political muddle in which he has been cast. It is also disappointing to note that he prefers to follow rather than lead.

Boehner, although a genuine “corporations come first” Republican, is far more moderate than his four dozen Republican members who agree with the “take no prisoners” radicalized creed of their tea party constituents. That minority within the House Majority trampled roughshod over the preferences of most of the citizenry by taking the U.S. federal government hostage to their demands.

And, of course, here is where the writer and I agree then depart, and not just a tad bit, but radically.

Yes.  Agreed: Boehner is “far more moderate than his four dozen Republican members who with the ‘take no prisoners’ radicalized creed of their tea party constituents.”

But a massively-important interjection: to believe in the Constitution, to believe in a limited government, to believe in a Constitution that, by its nature, tends to limit government (as I, frankly, quite nicely summarized here) is not a concept or philosophy that can be categorized as “radical” unless you yourself are a radical and a disbeliever in the brilliant precepts of our founding fathers — as horribly Caucasoid as they may have been.  Damn them for that.  When you minimize our foundational documents you bleat for a “Living Constitution.”  Meaning: you simply want more governmental Free Cheese.

In my opinion, as I wrote in 2010, it all gets down to:

POSITIVE vs NEGATIVE RIGHTS:

Our current Constitution frames much of what we value in terms of what the government cannot do.

However, this year’s Boehner seems to feel the Speaker’s cloak slipping from his shoulders and apparently is unwilling to jeopardize his vaulted position. Thus he continues to substitute ducking and dodging for bold leadership. Perhaps it was too much to hope, but wouldn’t it have been historic if Speaker Boehner told his Republicans to either act like adults or find themselves a new Speaker of the House?

The GOP has pretty much “gone along to get along” and I am primarily done with that philosophy.

Because I should care to point out the statue of Captain Obvious standing in the room: when is it, precisely, when a moderate Republican has been embraced recently by the electorate, or not been demonized by the press, or not been castigated by the Demorats?  Clue me in, if you please: when?

So: “wouldn’t it have been historic if Speaker Boehner told his Republicans to either act like adults or find themselves a new Speaker of the House?”

Again, another point of departure with the — I submit — Leftist author: his Republicans in the arms-length guise of Ted Cruz ARE acting like adults.  The Fiscal Adults.  The Logical Adults.  The Common Sense Adults.  Sitting at the Adult’s Table.  As opposed to the kid’s table at Thanksgiving.  Because: there are no adults in DC these days.

Additionally: the GOP should find itself a new Speaker of the House.  Perhaps John Boehner should feel the speaker’s cloak slipping from his tanned shoulders.

One House suggestion: Tom McClintock.

An actual Conservative.

BZ