After House Speaker John Boehner announced his intention to resign at the end of October, suddenly liberal journalists grew nostalgic. Rachel Maddow found him “refreshing and lovable.” Chris Matthews insisted “Everybody likes John Boehner. I can tell you the media like him.”
That’s not exactly what Matthews and his liberal-media colleagues have been saying over the last five years. Here are 15 quotes that underline some real media animus against Boehner and the "extremists" in his GOP caucus.
Blame Republican Budget Cutters for Cantaloupe Carnage
"John Boehner and his Republican majority decided to gut the FDA's food safety and inspection service. First, slashing $87 million from its budget and then another $35 million from the USDA for good measure. Cut, cut, cut. And now the results are in. Sixteen people have lost their lives. Close to 100 are sick. Republicans in Congress talk proudly of their commitment to laissez-faire economics, where government gets out of the way and everything works perfectly. You try telling that to those who ate melon with a side of listeria." -- Host Martin Bashir on MSNBC's Martin Bashir, September 30, 2011
John Boehner Wants Spending Cuts? Is He Kidding?
Host Bob Schieffer: "Today on Face the Nation, it was a week when you couldn't believe your ears. First it was House Speaker John Boehner:"
Clip of John Boehner: "I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase."
Schieffer: "When he said that last year, Congress tied itself in such a knot that America's credit rating was downgraded, not to mention Congress' approval rating, which hit a new low. And now he wants to fight the same battle? Was he kidding?" -- CBS's Face the Nation, May 20, 2012.
Scolding Boehner for Daring to Criticize Obama
"Speaker Boehner this morning told a group of reporters over breakfast, and I'll quote, that the President 'does not have the guts to do what needs to be done.' That's pretty personal, and I wonder if it's helpful in terms of reaching compromise on legislation?" -- Anchor Scott Pelley to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in an interview shown on the CBS Evening News, February 12, 2013.
"By calling the President of the United States out in such harsh terms today, on the day of the State of the Union address, and questioning his guts and questioning his courage, and he's going to walk into that chamber tonight, and he's going to hand you a copy of his speech and he's going to stand in front of you and people are going to be watching your face through that entire speech. And you know what? I think a lot of people are going to say, 'Here we go. Same old division. Same old animosity.' Don't they have a right to say that?" -- Co-host Matt Lauer to Speaker of the House John Boehner on NBC's Today, February 13, 2013 from an interview recorded the previous day.
Blame Boehner's Language, Not Obama's Obstinacy
"A few weeks ago, you said that the President didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done on the budget. Today, you said the Senate has to get off its ass. Those don't sound like the words of a man seeking to bring people together to compromise." -- Anchor Scott Pelley to House Speaker John Boehner in an interview shown on the February 26, 2013 CBS Evening News.
Berating Boehner for "Least Productive" Congress
Host Bob Schieffer: "Any way you cut it, and whoever's fault it is, you have presided over what is perhaps the least productive, and certainly one of the least popular, Congresses in history. How do you feel about that?...But it's not the case, Mr. Speaker, of just passing or not passing new laws. You've got the government in gridlock. You're laying off people in the Defense Department. They're working four days a week. You've got the sequester that is the creation of Congress. This is not something that was foisted upon Washington by somebody from Mars."
House Speaker John Boehner: "Who insisted upon the sequester? The President of the United States." -- CBS's Face the Nation, July 21, 2013.
Do You Blame the "Extreme Right-Wing" for Taking GOP "Hostage"...
"The extreme right-wing of the Republican Party has taken that party hostage, at least in the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a decent man. He's not an extremist. But he's a weak man. The old phrase comes to mind, I could carve a better man out of a banana. He is not going to challenge the extremists in his own party because he wants to hang on to his job." -- Politico columnist Roger Simon on CNN Newsroom, October 1, 2013.
"Question: If Ted Cruz and John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved? Answer: America. Harsh? Look around you at what is happening to America and you will see harsh. I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula. That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh. And for what? Because Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas, has grown so drunk on the sound of his own voice and so besotted with illusions of his own grandeur that he believes halting government today will propel him into the White House tomorrow?" -- Politico columnist Roger Simon in an October 14, 2013 column.
Terrible GOP Led by a "Clavern of Sociopaths"
"This [government shutdown] has been in its way worse than Watergate. Watergate ultimately vindicated our system against the machinations of one sociopath....Today, we have a clavern of sociopaths who know nothing of honor, and we have no easy way to stop them. Except at the ballot box. Except that they've rigged that, too, with their House districts. They've rigged the whole game so that they light the match and then point at President Obama and shout: `Look! Fire!' And overseeing it all is House Speaker John Boehner, as of Tuesday officially the worst high-ranking elected officer in the history of the United States. I know, there's been a congeries of drunkards and rapists I can barely imagine. I don't care. Boehner is worse than all of them." -- Newsweek/The Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky in an October 16, 2013 article.
Benghazi: Just a GOP Voodoo Cult
"The enemies of Hillary Clinton, by that I mean the partisan enemies, have got their voodoo doll. It's called Benghazi. Every time they put the pin in, they hope it hurts Hillary....It's become an obsession bordering on cultism among Republicans, with even John Boehner falling under its spell. You can almost smell the incense. 'Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.' They keep chanting the word until it gets Hillary to fall." -- Chris Matthews opening MSNBC's Hardball, May 5, 2013.
Boehner Lawsuit = Third World Coup?
"This is the kind of Mickey Mouse that goes on in Third World countries before they have a coup because people were just sick of it. Anyway, we won't have one because we are America." -- MSNBC host Chris Matthews on the July 7, 2014 Hardball, talking about House Speaker John Boehner's lawsuit against the President for taking actions that exceed his constitutional authority.
Preparing to Blame Conservatives for Any Lack of Progress
"Mr. Speaker, you have a new crop of conservatives coming into the House who have suggested, among other things, that women need to submit to the authority of their husbands, that Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ, and that the families of Sandy Hook victims should just get over it. So the `hell no caucus,' as you've put it, is getting bigger and some of them don't think you're conservative enough." -- CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes to House Speaker John Boehner at a November 6, 2014 press conference.
Boehner a "Traitor" for Asking Israeli Leader to Speak
Mother Jones magazine writer David Corn: "Bibi Netanyahu, he is, by accepting John Boehner's nearly traitorous invitation to speak-"
Host Chris Matthews: "You mean, there was a Logan Act violation?"
Corn: "I think there was. Listen, you don't go after the king unless you can kill the king. Barack Obama is still President of the United States. He has a lot of discretion in matters that will be very important to Netanyahu that will play out behind the scenes. There is no reason for him to tick the President off and be so much in his face and side with the crazy Republicans." -- Choosing the "loser of the week" on MSNBC's Hardball, January 23, 2015.
Pelley Picks a Peck of Obnoxious Liberal Questions
"Mr. Speaker, I think your reaction to the State of the Union was written all over your face. It must be a hell of a thing to sit behind the President knowing that 30 million Americans are watching you for an hour. Do you practice that scowl?"
"Unemployment has fallen to 5.6 percent, gasoline prices are down, the stock markets are up. The economy grew by five percent in the third quarter. That's the fastest rate in more than a decade. You don't congratulate the President for that?"
"The President has temporarily protected about five million illegal immigrants in this country from deportation. The House just passed a bill to block that....Is that governing, just sending bills up to the White House that are gonna get vetoed?" -- Questions posed by CBS anchor Scott Pelley during his 60 Minutes interview with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, January 25, 2015.
Republicans Who Grew Up Poor = "Traitors to Their Class"
"In the case of the three Republican leaders [John Boehner, Scott Walker and Joni Ernst] cited above, and most of those who aspire to be the G.O.P. presidential nominee next year, these Horatio Algerians for the new Gilded Age are working to keep the downtrodden down. They are traitors to their class, with all the strutting moral superiority that comes with the conversion....It's a variant of Mitt Romney's view that 47 percent of Americans are moochers. Stripped to its essence, it's a load of loathing for their former class, delivered on a plate of platitudes." -- Former New York Times reporter Timothy Egan, now a Times columnist, in an opinion piece which appeared in the March 20, 2015 edition under the headline, "Traitors to Their Class."
