As Adam pointed out yesterday, even taken at face value John Boehner's attempt to use whining to deflect responsibility from his inability to secure the votes he promised for the bailout bill is embarrassing. Even worse, as Jonathan Zasloff notes, is that the story is plainly false. The speech was hardly some partisan stemwinder and, moreover, specifically exempted House Republicans from any criticism. Boehner had already lost the votes before Pelosi said anything.
(It's hard to simultaneously argue that George Bush's policies should be entirely exempt from criticism and that the policy he's strongly supporting should be rejected, but logic can't be considered a strong suit among people who think that suspending the capital gains tax will solve a problem based on people having investments that lost money.) And, of course, none of the small number of Republican representatives who actually heard Pelosi's speech seemed to find it objectionable in real time.
So, to summarize, John Boehner failed to deliver the votes he promised, potentially putting the country in substantial economic peril, lied about the reasons to cover up his ineptitude, and the lie actually makes him and his colleagues look worse. In other words, your classic Bush-era Republican.
--Scott Lemieux
