Tucson: Republicans Prefer a Good Drink to Reverence

Our dear John Boehner, with his carrot-colored complexion (we didn’t know the sun shone so brightly in his old district of Ohio)! We love the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. Always ready to weep, but unfortunately never at the right time. He wins our Hyprocrisy Prize of the week, although there was plenty of selection, led by Sarah Palin, who doesn’t see how an insinuation of murder, however symbolic, may have contributed to the violent mood. As early as March 20, Gabrielle Giffords, in an interview with MSNBC, warned against the risks such insinuations could set in motion. The Grand Hypocrisy Prize goes to a Palin associate who says that the viewfinder image affixed to Gabrille Giffords’ district was actually “a surveyor’s symbol.” We would laugh if it weren’t so pathetic.

But we digress. Barack Obama invited Nancy Pelosi’s replacement as Speaker of the House to take advantage of Air Force One, the presidential plane, to accompany him to Tucson to honor the victims of the Safeway parking lot shooting. But Boehner declined the 44th’s offer. He needed to be present, he explained, that day before the House of Representatives. Honorable. Especially, Boehner explained, as Nancy Pelosi would be in Tucson, so he needed to stay in Washington so that at least one of the two leaders of the House of Representatives would be present for the ceremony.

But a ceremony honoring a friend shot down by a crazed killer and the six victims of the Safeway parking lot massacre made the Ohio congressman thirsty! As the day ended, Boehner actually went to a cocktail party for Maria Cino, his candidate to replace Michael Steele as GOP head, as well as an opportunity to talk to potential donors to the Republican Party, which really needs money. During that time, the rest of America gathered and listened to Barack Obama’s speech. Obviously, Fox News criticized the ceremony as if it were the Oscars, complaining that those who had rescued victims were not sitting in the front row, as if that were the only thing to say. Fox News, Sarah Palin’s employer, had to find something negative to say.