On Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer argued that Speaker of the House John Boehner avoided a “rape of the Treasury” by postponing the vote on Hurricane Sandy relief legislation.
New York Republican Rep. Peter King and New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie joined Democrats in blasting Boehner for the delay, but Krauthammer said some of the criticism is hypocritical. (RELATED: Christie blames Boehner for ‘continued suffering’ of Sandy victims)
“Sometimes the hypocrisy of the Democrats would leave Diogenes stunned,” Krauthammer said. “The Democrats spent two years savaging President [George W.] Bush over his treatment of Katrina. All of a sudden it’s a paragon of how to deal with disasters.”
“And this idea that somehow the person to blame for suffering of the people today, months after Sandy, who aren’t getting help … is John Boehner, because of a bill he didn’t pass on January 1 — it’s preposterous, and the press is playing along that line,” he added.
Krauthammer said Boehner’s postponement of the pork-laden legislation was the right call, given that Congress was able to pass legislation raising the debt ceiling of the National Flood Insurance Program.
“I think what Boehner did in postponing the vote until today was absolutely right,” Krauthammer declared. “That was a rape of the Treasury — $60 billion, including a ton of pork. The part that was essentially passed today to replenish the flood insurance. That is right, and the rest ought to be debated in regular order.”