Why Boehner bowed out

The party he represented was not the party he governed

House Speaker John Boehner
(Image credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Well, now we know why he was so emotional yesterday. John Boehner, a devout Catholic, had wanted to see a pope address the U.S. Congress, his U.S. Congress, for 20 years. But now the pope has left Washington — and for Boehner, it would have been all downhill from there. No wonder he's resigning — not only as House speaker, but from Congress altogether.

Boehner faced, yet again, the threat of a full-scale revolt from conservatives if he refused to bring forward legislation to shut down the government in order to protest Planned Parenthood. Add to that the struggle to pay for an extension of the highway fund, the looming vote to extend the federal debt ceiling — all set against the backdrop of an angry and energized conservative base that has given Boehner no quarter, and, in fact, has come to dislike him actively, so much so that they are coalescing around presidential candidates who are running as much against the GOP leadership as they are against the Democratic president. No wonder Boehner bowed out.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.