John Boehner, the Pope, and all that

Oh boo hoo!

Chalk up another win for the crazies. 

John Boehner announced his coming resignation this morning, both as Speaker of the House and from Congress. He couldn’t control his Party of Nuts, and in fact, often seemed to be pretty nutty himself, blaming President Obama whether it was for the intransigence of Congress or the California drought.

Meanwhile, he wept at the drop of a sentiment, for events ranging from a 60 Minutes interview, to an interview with the Golf Channel — the Golf Channel! — to listening to Pope Francis speak to Congress.

The Pope has had a lot of important things to say about the status of immigrants,  the poor, and the impact of pollution on the climate, but in a way I’m glad Boehner's broke the streak of Papal coverage. The Pontiff’s advocacy for humanity, common sense, and science was getting drowned out by fluff and trivia.  In typical network fashion, news broadcasting since yesterday has been All Pope All The Time, with the focus largely on anything but what the Pope is talking about.

In a desperate attempt to fill every last friggin’ millisecond with His Holiness, they’ve gone on and on with blitheringly unimportant detail about whom he kissed, and who thinks her life has changed because the Pope passed by in his bubble car, or that the Pope at one point sat in a golf cart. All that crap waters down the impact of the truly important things the Pope has to say about social justice and climate change. 

It got so bad that this morning that on CBS here in New York, the weather reporter began the day’s forecast by saying, “The Pope wakes up to a sunny day today….”

Meanwhile, neither the Pope nor Boehner’s resignation will thwart the Republican crazies in their effort to shut down the government and the economy, wreck the climate, block immigration, and do anything they can to undo what the Pope wants to achieve. It’s so bad that, at least so far, even far right candidate Paul Ryan is refusing to touch the speaker’s job with a ten foot pole.

Hey John Boehner — want something to weep for? 

Weep for The United States of America.