Though I don't think much of him, I had to feel sorry for John Boehner last night, sitting there behind Obama and therefore always on camera, looking all orange and ornery, like he hadn't had a satisfactory bowel movement since the Bush administration. Maybe he just needed a cigarette. What has gone wrong in the ten weeks or so since he and his party were on top of the world? The official Republican response by the new junior senator from Iowa--yikes:
Hi! I'm Joni! I grew up in a small town in Iowa! When it rained, my mom put little plastic baggies around my one good pair of shoes! That's what all the moms did! Obamacare, the EPA, and the Department of Education have to go!
I'm guessing she was around half through her corn pone recitation when my wife, trying to pipe some intelligence into our living room, switched to "The Big-Titted Solipsists of Orange County." I was reminded of a snippet from "one of those shows" I was watching on Sunday morning. The gas bags were talking about Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, and the Republican mouthpiece expressed the opinion that "it's time to turn the page, and talking about Bush and Romney isn't turning the page." True, but would it really help their cause if the talk was about--Marco Rubio? Rand Paul? Ted Cruz?
Mentioning Rubio reminds me of his debacle responding to an Obama State of the Union. It's always said that it's the president's night and that the opposition's spokesperson has an impossible task. That's what they say about refereeing football games, too, after referees have just manifestly blown it. I don't think it's true, anyway. Here is Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia and a prospective (albeit second-tier} candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, responding to a SOTU of Bush the Younger:
This is not a man determined to provide Jon Stewart with material.
