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" John Boehner came on my electric teevee machine this morning to explain last night&amp;#039;s epic face plant, and there was a lot of blabbity-blab about Washington&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;spending problem&amp;quot; and the prospect of &amp;quot;devastating defense cuts&amp;quot; if the country slips down the Gentle Fiscal Incline, and that all amounted to a lot of white noise \u2014 Washington&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;spending problem&amp;quot; has little or nothing to do with the defense budget? Oh. \u2014 until Boehner got around to explaining why he&amp;#039;s singing in such a lovely soprano this morning. &amp;quot;There was a perception created that this vote was a vote to raise taxes. I disagree. But there&amp;#039;s a number of our members who didn&amp;#039;t want to be perceived as raising taxes...The perception was out there and our members didn&amp;#039;t want to deal with it.&amp;quot; (There was a very strange analogy in the middle there about drowning people and a lifeguard, which served primarily as a distraction from the fact that it was Boehner who actually was going down for the third time.) Left unsaid, and unasked:  Who &amp;quot;created&amp;quot; the scary &amp;quot;perception&amp;quot;? If it&amp;#039;s just a &amp;quot;perception,&amp;quot; why did so many of his members act on it, and why was he unable to make them &amp;quot;deal&amp;quot; with it? Why is the country being held hostage by a &amp;quot;perception&amp;quot; that so terrifies a rump faction in one house of Congress? And... Who&amp;#039;s running this rodeo anyway?  The fact is Boehner knows he has no power any more. He can&amp;#039;t even muscle the Ghosts Of Primaries Future out of the minds of rookie congresscritters whose desks might as well be on the sidewalk outside the Rayburn building. He just admitted that to the world. He can still be Speaker \u2014 It&amp;#039;s hard to imagine the House Republican caucus agreeing on anything at this point, let alone on deposing Boehner, who will do what the feral children want anyway \u2014 but that&amp;#039;s largely an honorary title now. He&amp;#039;s the concierge in an asylum. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17021/john-boehner-press-conference-fiscal-cliff-122112/?src=rss>