Boehner's cheap opposition strategy

By Ruth Marcus
WashPost
Wednesday, August 25, 2010

There are times when I flirt with the notion that the country would be better off with divided government.

If Republicans took control, say, of the House, there would be pressure on both parties to behave more responsibly. The GOP would be pushed to stop carping and posturing, and start governing. Democrats would have political cover to make hard choices on entitlement spending, taxes and the like. As every politician knows, bipartisan cliff-jumping is a safer sport than going solo.

That's the theory. Then there's John Boehner.

The man who would be speaker outlined his agenda Tuesday in a speech to the City Club of Cleveland -- economic policy reduced to, literally, five easy tweets. The Ohio Republican offered up a depressing blend of tired ideas, tired-er one-liners ("We've tried 19 months of government-as-community-organizer") and cheap attacks. The cheapest: calling for the firing of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers.

(More here.)