John Boehner's Bad Night

President Obama and Speaker Boehner had back-to-back press conferences in an evening of high political drama. President Obama angrily excoriated House Republicans for being unwilling or unable to “say yes to anything,” ordered Congressional leaders to the White House tomorrow morning like a stern schoolmarm punishing petulant children, and then, in a scene reminiscent of Jack Stanton, gave a defense of the middle class workers and families in the face of campaign funders and talk show hosts. Putting John Boehner in the Congressional Briefing Room an hour after an impassioned Barack Obama spoke from the White House—and after he had dodged calls all day from the leader of the free world—is kind of like sending a weak hitting team up against Clayton Kershaw, so it was pretty clear that President Obama would come out on top this night.

But what made Boehner’s press conference fun was the series of assertions that just do not add up. First, Boehner claims that the negotiations broke down for two reasons: first, that the parties had agreed to a specific amount of revenue increases and the President then asked for more; and second that the White House was never serious about cutting spending. How is anyone watching this debate supposed to believe that Boehner and Cantor agreed to a specific revenue increase ($800 Billion) when the White House was not serious about cutting spending. Conservatives might be willing to believe that Boehner would sell them out (and, if so, would now be preparing to oust him from the Speakership in favor of his smarmy colleague), but Cantor had made it clear the entire time that they were never going to pin a tax increase on him.

Boehner’s claims got fishier as he moved on. After complaining that dealing with the White House is like dealing with Jello and that the White House had moved the goal posts, he then says that, yes, he would trust President Obama as a negotiating partner. After declaring earlier that he would not negotiate with the President, but instead look to Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate (as if Congressional Democrats would sign off on something more favorable than the President—and ignoring the fact that the President would have to sign the deal), he then announced that he would, in fact, attend the 11 AM negotiating session with the President as he was ordered to do.

(While not substantive to the issue, Boehner made some plainly counter-factual statements. Boehner claimed that he took the same oath as the President—he did not—and that he has the same responsibility as the President—he does not.)

You can hardly blame the Speaker. He was clearly not ready to take on the PR battle, but could not let the President’s press conference go on without responding. And you almost have to feel sorry for him. Almost.