Speaker Boehners Fiscal Cliff Debacle This Article appears on http://www.stupidelephants.

com/ When he became speaker of the House in January 2011, John Boehner asked to be given a larger-than-usual gavel. For the last two years, he has worked and lived to prove that his large gavel is inversely proportional to the power he wields in the House of Representatives. That fact was in full display on Thursday night when fellow Republicans refused to pass his millionaires tax increase, handing him a much-deserved embarrassmentand Democrats a much-needed talking point, to wit: that Republicans would rather raise taxes on all Americans than collect a penny of it from millionaires. And he really deserved the humiliation. What kind of speaker cuts off talks with the White House (where people are serious about governing, and the President and his staff are engaged in good-faith give-and-take), and instead embarks on negotiations with the Tea Party jihadists (for whom governing is an afterthought, and anti-Obama/anti-tax fanaticism predominates)? It has been clear from summer 2011 that the Tea Party crowd is willing to take the economy hostage in pursuit of their fringe agenda. Yet the Speaker unprompted and without good reason (he was already making good progress with President Obama)descended to the Tea Party den to negotiate Plan B. After four days in the netherworld, he emerged, grievously wounded, perhaps mortally so, as there is now talk that he lost a vote of confidence on Thursday night and he might not survive as speaker in 2013. Should he lose the speakers job in January, it will relieve the nation of one of the weakest, least productive speakers in the nations history. It is not his fault that the American people elected extremists to Congress in 2010; but it is his fault that he became a captive of those extremists. If he had a proper understanding of his Tea Party members and his own role in the governance of the country, he would not have permitted the Tea Party nihilists to control the agenda of the House.. To read more, go to http://www.stupidelephants.com/