John Boehner and Harry Reid: Who's Crying Now?

So, we now know that the incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner of Ohio, finds his own American story so moving that he cannot stop blubbering about it. We now know the basic contours of his narrative — Boehner is the second oldest of twelve children, only one bathroom between them, dad owned a bar, worked his way through college, was a JFK Democrat until he got rich in business. One gets the sense that Boehner's waterworks, already a well-worn performance piece, will be a sad feature of our life in the near-term as the American passion play continues its long run.

Now, briefly, let us compare the most powerful man in the United States House to the most powerful man in the United States Senate. Anybody seen Harry Reid sobbing over the modest circumstances of his upbringing lately? No? Oh, well that's because he doesn't do it. And the funny thing is, John Boehner was raised in middle-class comfort compared to Reid.

So Boehner swept up around his dad's bar every now and then when he was a kid? Well, Harry Reid worked as a hard rock miner from the age of eleven.

Boehner sometimes had to wait to use the toilet? Reid grew up in a house made of creosote-covered railroad ties — highly flammable — and never knew the luxury of indoor plumbing. The outhouse was some distance from the house, too, which seemed much farther in the winter.

Oh, and did we mention that Boehner's dad owned a business? Reid's father, who also toiled as a hard rock miner, owned barely the clothes on his back. He worked long hours when he wasn't drunk, but often because of disreputable claim owners wouldn't get paid. Creditors hounded the Reid household, compelling Reid's mother to take in washing from the whorehouses that formed the basis for the Searchlight, Nevada, economy. Reid's dad would contract miner's lung and shoot himself in the head at fifty-six.

According to last night's 60 Minutes, Boehner's family were loyal Kennedy Democrats, but then Boehner...

Source: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/harry-reid-john-boehner-121310?src=rss

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