Wait, what?
asked Speaker John Boehner about what he was going to do when he received the clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security that was coming from the Senate. Mr. Zwillich is pointed and asks:
With respect to you Mr. Speaker, your answers about what you are going to do are the same as yesterday. Mitch McConnell has said exactly what he is going to do, you know exactly what you are going to get–it's going to be a clean DHS funding bill. Are you going to put it on the floor? Are you gonna kill it? Are you going to let them vote on it? Have you even had this discussion?
As he finishes the last line Boehner starts making kissing sounds at him and smiles, as people laugh (both genuinely and uncomfortably), and then says:
"When they make decisions I'll let you know."
The video is below the fold. I urge you to watch it. The easy joke is that it is kinda gross and strange and weird. It's a bad attempt at lightening the mood by Boehner. The real grotesque quality is not that Boehner did something awkward and condescending, it's the fact that he is being asked a very serious question, about the single issue he is there to discuss, with real information at his fingertips. His response and that of some of the press is that this is a game where no one asks or expects real answers as there is no reason for anyone to say anything with integrity or honesty or import.
The question being asked is not how John Boehner makes kissey faces to nieces and nephews when they leave after the holidays. It's about thousands of people's salaries. Government employees charged with protecting every American citizen living on American soil. It's a serious question. Be a serious person. You are paid handsomely to make serious decisions.
