During its horrendous inaugural season in 1962, the New York Mets stumbled home with a 40-120 record, the worst in baseball history, often leaving manager Casey Stengel to spread his arms in despair and ask, “Can’t anybody here play this game?’’
In seeming answer to Stengel’s famous inquiry, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from somewhere-or-other Lewis County, has answered with a resounding no. If there ever was a lawmaker who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is ill-equipped to handle the responsibilities of serving in Congress, it’s this 44-year-old whiz kid.
Massie has accomplished next to nothing during his nearly three years on Capitol Hill. In fact his record is worse than nothing. His one claim to fame comes as a key member of the cabal that essentially ousted House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, last week for refusing to lead 435 lawmakers over the cliff like so many lemmings.
Thomas Massie
Now, having accomplished his dirty deed, Massie is once again whining and hissing because, fortunately, he is not getting his way, a way that would do untold damage to a nation he is supposed to be serving.
Having had a hand in ditching Boehner, essentially because he refused to shut down the government for the second time in three years, Massie is complaining about the man seemingly fated to serve in his stead, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California.
“If conservative members of Congress — like the tea party caucus, the freedom caucus and the liberty caucus — go back home to their town halls and say, ‘Guess what, we replaced John Boehner with his right-hand man,’ the constituents are not going to be very happy with that outcome,” Massie told The Daily Caller, a conservative news website.
Massie similarly expressed dismay that those Republicans already in leadership likely will advance once the party elections are conducted on Oct. 8.
“It doesn’t seem like much will change if you just move everybody up a slot,” Massie told The Daily Caller. “I mean, they’ve all been a party to the misdeeds that Boehner has committed — like rushing legislation to the floor without giving us time to read the bills, kicking people off their committees, taking away their subcommittee chairmanships. They’ve all been a party to that and haven’t done anything to stop it.”
In other words, as Roger Daltrey famously screamed more than 40 years ago, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.’’
Slim replacement pickings
So our boy Massie finds the pickings a little slim when it comes to replacing Boehner. None of his right wing pals have expressed a willingness to be thrown into the briar patch, save for Rep. Daniel Webster, R-FL, a nothingburger if there ever was one, who in no way should be confused with the great statesman from the early 19th Century.
Webster, it should be recalled, ran against Boehner during the leadership elections earlier this year. He amassed all of 12 votes.
“There are two battles to fight, one to get conservative government,’’ Massie said on his Facebook site. “The other to eliminate the corruption and dysfunction. I think Webster can help us win the fight against corruption and dysfunction.’’
If there is indeed, corruption, Massie, as a member of Congress is obliged to report it to the proper authorities. If he wants to get rid of the dysfunction, he might want to consider resigning himself.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Thomas Massie isn’t into this governing thingy. He’s the guy who sits alone at the end of the bar, talking to himself, solving all the world’s problems in his head and letting a yelp loose every now and then because no one is listening to his genius.
Massie’s idea of governing is to take his ball and run home every time things don’t go his way. His most brilliant recent idea was to shut down the government in order to stop the flow of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood, which offers many necessary health services to millions of woman, all because he disdains the fact that the organization is an abortion provider.
In order to defund Planned Parenthood, Massie recommends chaos. Now that’s no way to run a government, friends.
He’s a bomb thrower, nothing more.
Massie and his cohorts are right on one point – Boehner too often failed to lead. But that failure wasn’t because he refused to follow them down the rabbit hole, it was because he kowtowed to them too frequently.
Uncommon times
John Boehner is a good guy, a hail-fellow-well-met. At some other time he might have made a halfway decent Speaker. But he served during uncommon times when there actually were three political parties in the House – the Democrats, the Republicans and the Crazies. He didn’t deal well with those factions and history will show, because of that, he was no Sam Rayburn.
Boehner’s problem was that he all-too-often was more intent on securing his position as Speaker than he was in properly skippering the ship. He actually amended the unofficial Hastert rule, which initially held that only legislation that carried the support of a majority of the Republican caucus would make it to the floor. Under Boehner it often became only those bills that could pass with Republican votes alone would be considered.
Leaders of past slim majorities – say prior to the so-called Gingrich Revolution in 1994 – usually considered it good policy to bring along at least a few members of the opposing party to pass a bill. Lyndon Johnson, before he became president, serving as the Democratic leader, often met with Everett Dirksen, of Illinois, his counterpart on the Republican side, to work things out.
That wasn’t Boehner’s practice. He was opposed to the 2013 government shutdown, urged by his party’s right wing, but he charged ahead anyway like the Earl of Cardigan at Balaklava.
Had he simply followed his instincts and led the Republican majority, cutting the deals necessary to operate the federal government while facing down the crazies, Boehner would have experienced a more successful tenure. He finally fell on his sword last week in order to keep the doors open despite the rabid calls from the peanut gallery. Regardless, it’s unlikely history will treat him all that well.
So Boehner’s almost gone – he slips out at the end of October – and all Massie and his ilk can expect to get in return is a leadership team that likely will operate in a similar manner. That will permit Massie to continue doing what he does best — squeal like a stuck pig.
And, of course, he’ll have several more opportunities to gum up the works. Congress still has to fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year after the continuing resolution expires on Dec. 11. And then there’s raising the debt limit so the federal government can continue to pay its bills rather than face the possibility of default.
When all that comes up you can count on Massie playing all three Marx Brothers roles at the climax of “A Night at the Opera.’’ Only it won’t be so funny.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.
Right on, Bill. Just another Tea Party. The concept of the Tea Party was a good one but now the “loonies” have taken over.
Thomas Massie has not supported many bills because, unlike the establishment GOP he actually reads bills and applies the principles of the constitution to them. While most of congress is leading the country into the ground Massie is one of the few attempting to save it.