Unless you’re ready for full-immersion fantasy inside baseball, please stop reading now.
You heard what I said! Go away!
Okay, stud, here’s the deal: House Speaker John Boehner’s recent decision to finally allow the creation of a House Select Committee to “investigate,” for the fiftieth time, the bloody raid on the American compound in Benghazi that resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others does not prove that Boehner is finally taking the “scandal” seriously. Rather, it’s his way of deep-sixing the whole schmear, while endearing himself to the right wing!
Consider: Who’s investigating Benghazi right now? Rep. Darrell Issa! Who is the worst, most partisan, most bigoted walking freak show in Congress? Darrell Issa! By taking Benghazi away from Issa, Boehner isn’t turning up the heat on the Obama Administration, he’s turning it down.
As Dave Wiegel points out over at Slate, a lot of Republicans have visions of impeachment dancing in their heads, dances that will surely move to the House floor if the Republicans sweep Congress in November, which is likely to happen. And that could get ugly. But things have already gotten ugly for Boehner when, a week or two ago, he was so full of himself as to make fun of Republicans who are “afraid” of immigration reform.
Seriously, what is Boehner smoking? The right wing isn’t afraid of immigration reform. You don’t fear something you can crush like a bug, which is exactly what the right would do if the Speaker were so unwise as to bring a package to the floor. But Boehner can’t tell Wall Street that. Oh, yeah, immigration reform, this session, for sure! You can count on it! He has to keep feeding them that bull or watch America’s entire herd of billionaire goombahs lumber across the aisle and sit down with the damn Democrats!
So Boehner simply has to throw the right wing a bone. Why not let the knuckle-walkers have their day? Who knows? They could land a lucky punch or two, roughing up the president or Hillary, whose previous testimony on the subject wasn’t all that impressive, or even John “Frogface” Kerry. It’s better than spending the next six months bitching about Obamacare! And if impeachment comes up next January, as it most assuredly will, well, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
