In Carrie Fisher's brilliant 2010 one-woman show, "Wishful Drinking," she re-enacts her mother, Debbie Reynolds, reflecting on her various failed marriages. The first was to Eddie Fisher who, in 1958, infamously left her to be with Elizabeth Taylor.
In looking back, Debbie concluded, "You know, Carrie dear, it turns out that Eddie was the good husband." That's how I feel about resigned Speaker of the House John Boehner. (Younger readers are muttering, "Who the hell is Eddie Fisher?")
I admit I occasionally have made fun of Boehner in this space. Sometimes it was his unusual emotional moments that brought him to tears, sometimes it was his perpetual tan, which actually looked more orange than tan. Just as sometimes Donald Trump's hair is a color not generally seen on other humans, so was Boehner's skin tone. (When Bill Maher joked that Trump's hair color was that of an orangutan, Trump sued him for $5 million.)
Second in succession to the presidency, Boehner's replacement will be the 115th Speaker of the House in American history. But, during the last 50 years, there have only been three GOP speakers: Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and Bronzetan, I mean, John Boehner.
With self-righteous zeal, Speaker Gingrich led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Of course, at the same time, Newt was cheating on his own wife. (Actually, Newt cheated on both his ex-wives, which you'd think would make wife No. 3 a tad nervous.)
But karma caught up with Newt in 1997 when he was fined $300,000 by the House Ethics Committee. This marked the first time in history the House disciplined a speaker for ethical wrongdoing.
In 1998 Newt was justifiably blamed when Republicans lost five seats in the House, the worst midterm performance in 64 years by a party not holding the presidency. Gingrich immediately offered his resignation, saying he was "not willing to preside over people who are cannibals." (Can you say "bitter?")
Hastert, the longest-serving GOP speaker ever, is currently under federal indictment, charged with lying to the FBI and attempting to conceal large bank withdrawals. He allegedly used the monies to pay an individual for past "misconduct" while Hastert was a high school wrestling coach and the individual was a minor. (Uh oh!) The hush money was allegedly $3.5 million. (On a Congressman's salary?)
Reportedly, Boehner resigned due to pressure from the Tea Party. Politics is the art of compromise, but to Tea Baggers compromise is an act of betrayal. This may explain Congress' low poll numbers. Put it this way: Twice as many Americans think Elvis is still alive than think Congress is doing a good job.
Washington wasn't even this polarized during Joe McCarthy's "red scare" witch hunts in the early 1950s. And it's likely to get worse with a new House speaker. I could have titled this, "Better the devil you know than the one you don't," except it's too wordy.
Such is the temptation of being the majority in Congress that political parties often sell their souls to sit on the throne. While the Tea Baggers have hijacked the GOP, Democrats have their own skeletons.
For decades in the South, Democrats embraced racist southern segregationists. This unholy alliance ended in 1964 when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and reportedly predicted, "There goes the south for a generation." I'm predicting that one day the Tea Party will be the albatross for the GOP that the Dixiecrats were to the Democrats.
The dysfunction that has paralyzed Washington for the past 6-plus years is historic. And it started the day after the 2008 election when charisma-challenged Mitch McConnell warned he'd do everything to make Obama a one-term president and defeat every program the president offered up. (The country be damned.)
Frankly, Boehner's replacement, likely to be Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy from Bakersfield, will probably be even more polarizing. He's already on record as wanting American ground troops in Syria. And even worse, on Tuesday on Sean Hannity's show on Fox, he accidentally told the truth about the Congressional Select Committee on Benghazi.
Trying to show how tough he was, he credited the eight fruitless Benghazi hearings with bringing down Hillary's poll numbers. He thus revealed what many already knew, that the hearings have been a partisan political exercise. And you gotta love Hannity's shameless response to McCarthy's admission of perverting a Congressional investigation to hurt Hillary: "Yes, and I give you credit for that."
The Benghazi hearings, the longest in Congressional history, longer than Watergate and the JFK assassination, have cost $4.5 million in taxpayer money ... so far. The Starr Whitewater investigation cost $80 million (and only discovered a stain on Monica's dress.) Looking on the bright side, at least the current demagoguery has been cheaper.
You can see why I kind of miss Boehner. As for the probable new Speaker of the House, he's a polarizing pompous politician with pervasive power, proud of witch-hunt investigations and whose last name is McCarthy. What could go wrong there?
Go to YouTube and search "Carrie Fisher is a character." Meanwhile, Jack Neworth is at facebook.com/jackneworth, twitter.com/jackneworth and jnsmdp@aol.com.
