Lawmaker News

John Boehner, the House minority leader, mixed his message on the tax battle on purpose this weekend. I, for one, think it was a pretty clever move.

Bob Schieffer, the CBS “Face the Nation” host, tried to nail Boehner down on how he would vote if extending only a portion of the Bush tax cuts were his only option. Schieffer (and the Obama White House) all thought that Boehner would say he would vote no, giving Democrats an easy way to attack him and congressional Republicans over the next two months.

News reports today detail how House Republicans are secretly planning their takeover of the Capitol after November’s elections — right down to who gets the best views of the National Mall out the West Front of the building. They’re reading the polls, choosing color palettes and selecting office space, but as they plan to assume leadership positions they’re failing to demonstrate leadership on everything from the economy to jobs to foreign policy to Pastor Jones’s plan to fuel the fires of hatred with the pages of the Quran.

In Washington, the most dangerous place to be is between South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and a television news camera. In South Carolina, apparently, it’s the safest place to be.

Last week Graham (R) endured another censure from a local Republican Party committee and in an effort to mitigate additional damage among South Carolina conservatives he attempted to stop the bleeding with a meeting with a Tea Party chapter in Charleston. The meeting was open to the public on a first-come-first-served basis, unless you are a member of the media.

Over on The Hill’s Congress Blog, House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) staff has posted the text of his speech today before the American Legion National Convention in Milwaukee. I noted in an earlier post Boehner’s lack of ideas when it comes to solutions to address our economic situation. Little did I know he would prove me right, again, and so quickly.

Here is the verbatim transcript of his speech’s section on “Jobs and the Economy.”

Democrats and their much-to-be-desired leadership are simply falling victim to their own ideology. We certainly should be in no rush to excuse or bail them out of their legal woes.

This has been a bad year for old-school politicians.

This week, in particular, has been devastating for those of us who have great affection for the political professionals of the past.

Ted Stevens died in a plane crash and a day later, Dan Rostenkowski, the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee died of natural causes.

I knew from a close aide to Dan Rostenkowski, who died yesterday at his lake house in Wisconsin, that the man who was among the most powerful to walk the halls of Congress was battling lung cancer. He kept his illness private, and, with the exception of one Chicago columnist, local reporters went along.

Rosty had never smoked, but his wife did, and then there were all those smoke-filled rooms from the days when Lyndon Johnson held sway as majority leader, president and confidant of Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Did Harry Reid go over the line again?

The majority leader’s been accused of making an insensitive, racist remark when asked to comment on anti-immigrant measures recently put forth by Republicans. “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be Republican,” he replied.

Over the line? No way. All Harry Reid did is speak the truth.

The last line in the New York Times obituary is classic: “I didn’t lose my temper. I know right where it is.” That was all you really needed to know about Ted Stevens, who at times could be very unpleasant.

He was unpleasant with a purpose. And that purpose was to drag Alaska into the 20th century.

If Alaska is the last American frontier, then Ted Stevens was the last frontiersman. It should surprise no one that he died in a plane crash going on a fishing trip at age 86. He himself called his own shot when he told his colleague Mo Udall that he was going to die in a plane crash.