SALON

Sunday, Dec 30, 2012 5:22 AM UTC

Boehner ally: Speaker’s style not “effective way to do business”

Ouch! A fellow Republican tells the Washington Post the speaker's not willing to break arms and get things done

By

Topics: John Boehner, Fiscal cliff, Debt ceiling,

Boehner ally: Speaker's style not (Credit: AP)

One of John Boehner’s allies has some strange words of support for the beleaguered House Speaker in a Sunday profile in the Washington Post.

As the action on the fiscal cliff debate shifts to the Senate, the Post assesses where Boehner stands with his caucus. Boehner will need GOP support to bring any Senate compromise bill to a vote in the House, and could not find the numbers within his own party for his “Plan B” compromise.

A fellow Ohio Republican, Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, told the paper, essentially, that Boehner’s failure to lead with a decisive hand is what House Republicans admire about him.

“Boehner’s greatest strength is also his greatest weakness,” said LaTourette, who then contrasted Boehner with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

“She got out there and broke arms and got it done. Boehner has not been willing to do that. I give him high marks for that,” LaTourette told the Post. “But it’s not a very effective way to do business.”

And anyone who thinks the House will line up behind a compromise forged in the Senate by Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell might think again.

“I think most people like myself are looking for far more than what’s probably going to be able to be delivered,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Michigan Republican. told the paper. “We’re going to have to evaluate it. . . . There’ll probably be some room for improvement from the House perspective.”

 

 

 

Continue Reading Close

David Daley is the executive editor of Salon. More David Daley.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 8 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations