Not just stepping down as Speaker, but actually leaving office at the end of October.
I am no fan of Boehner. He's represented an institutional side of the GOP that has cynically set out not only to advance its own agenda, but to foil any achievement that the current Administration might seek, necessary or not. He's been a leader of one of the worst congresses in recent history, one that has decided that party politics trumps national interest.
And, yet, he's also been part of the effort to restrain or defuse the more extreme end of the GOP — a wing that's been encouraged and fostered and given voice by the party institution itself, to be sure, but has gained a Frankenstein Monster independence that threatens to destroy the village. He has been a voice of relative political reason (within a highly partisan framework) in trying to make the deals that absolutely had to be made, and has drawn repeated fire from the firebrands over it. Vitriol toward Boehner from within his own party has matched or exceeded anything coming from the Democratic side.
That he has decided to step down is understandable, if only for personal reasons, and I almost feel sympathy for him being forced to do so. It sounds like he was planning on doing so earlier, but Eric Cantor's defeat by the TPers forced him to stay on longer. Speculation is that, having made himself a lame duck, he's now in a position to get a budget resolution passed working with his own party and the Dems that will bypass the Republican zanies who want to shut down the US Government over the manufactured Planned Parenthood videos. To the extent that he's trying to avert the harm to the country from a shutdown (and the likely harm to his own party if that happened), I give him, if not a salute, at least a nod of appreciation.
How things go from here, especially rolling into an election year, would be highly entertaining, if it didn't directly affect the future of the nation. We'll see.
Speaker John Boehner will resign from Congress
Boehner came under fire with a potential government shutdown looming in a fight over Planned Parenthood.
He's leaving a battle he didn't want to fight. Good for him.
+keith olszewski He's leaving a battle he's already fought too many times, and the other side just keeps doubling down.