As he sows, so shall he weep

Well, it's official. Twitter tells me John Boehner was just elected Speaker of the House on a vote of 241-173. Apparently it took him all of 30 seconds to start weeping at the podium -- after selecting the largest gavel available. As Pelosi quipped when she turned it over, "You know what they say about a man and the size of his gavel, don't you?"

But I don't think her subtle joke was why he was crying. Maybe he was overcome with emotion at finally attaining his lifelong dream of holding the gavel. Or maybe he was struck by the realization that now he has to govern this mess his party created in the midterms.

“The problem is going to be the grass-roots movement out in the countryside,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican House member and Washington lobbyist who served with Mr. Boehner in the 1990s. “They have no sense of the limits on a party that controls only one of the three seats of power. Managing that relationship is going to be difficult.”

You don't suppose that could be because the GOPers promised an instant fix on the campaign trail in order to trick the rubes into voting for them? But this quote sums up the real Boehner for me:

“John is as excited as he would be about birdying the last hole and winning money from people,” [Sen. Saxby] Chambliss said. “He is pumped up and ready to go.”

Yeah, we already know how excited he is by "winning" money. His speech referenced "the People's House." What the rubes won't realize for a while though is that when he says that, he means the corporate "person" that bankrolled all those smarmy attack ads during the election and keep the GOPers campaign coffers filled.

Meanwhile, it's a probably a good sign there were only 19 Pelosi defections in the Speaker vote on the Democratic side. Goes to show how little power the idiot Blue Dogs and other ConservaDems have left.

[photo credit]