Minority Leader John Boehner is two days into a bipartisan beat-down — a small taste of what he can expect should he become speaker of the House and a test of his resilience as a leader.
Democrats hammered the Ohio Republican for his assertion that the Wall Street reform bill is “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon,” while MSNBC host Joe Scarborough aired private Republican complaints that Boehner is “disengaged at best” and a “lazy” bar denizen.
The crush of attention is a double-edged sword for Boehner: It’s a sign of his increasing stature — and of the GOP’s proximity to power — but it also raises questions about how Boehner will handle national scrutiny and a battering from all sides.
Scarborough told POLITICO in an interview Wednesday night that he likes Boehner and was simply reporting what a broad swath of House Republicans — old and young, conservative and moderate — have told him. “All I did is say on the air what they can’t say on the record,” he said.
The stakes for all sides are only getting higher as the midterm elections near, a dynamic evident in Democrats’ efforts to attack Boehner on a national level and turn his comments into the latest YouTube moment of the 2010 cycle.
Full Story John Boehner gets bipartisan beat down – Jonathan Allen and Jake Sherman – POLITICO.com