Orange Julius Goes To Steeltown

GOP House minority leader John Boehner's truly bizarre interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this morning is very revealing as to the GOP's 2010 strategy.  Highlights:

"The American people have written off the Democrats," Boehner said Monday in an interview with Tribune-Review editors and reporters. "They're willing to look at us again."

Boehner stopped short of predicting Republicans would gain the 39 seats they need to retake control of Congress, but he said a backlash against President Obama's policies has energized Republican voters more than Democrats. Boehner said voters are angry at a government they believe is overreaching and indifferent.

Stopped short?  Wasn't he predicting 100 House GOP pickups just a couple months ago?  Now he's hedging his bets?  What's going on here, OJ?

Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.


"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," Boehner said. What's most needed is more transparency and better enforcement by regulators, he said.

Yeah how dare we try to prevent the next multi-trillion dollar financial bailout when they go bust at the Big Casino again. The only nuclear weapon used was on our economy.  Anyone here want to really argue the FinReg bill goes too far?

But it gets better.

Boehner said Obama overreacted to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill might warrant a "pause" in deepwater drilling, but Obama's blanket ban on drilling in the gulf -- which a judge overturned last week -- could devastate the region's economy, he said. Louisiana State University scientists estimate the ban could have affected more than 10,000 jobs. 

Wait, now Obama overreacted when the complaint was he wasn't doing enough and not showing leadership?   How does that work, OJ?

Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.

To recap, we can afford to bomb chunks of rock in some godforsaken hellhole, but we can't afford to help out retirees.  So that we don't take money away from our children and grandchildren, we have to raise the retirement age and take money away from our children and grandchildren.

Makes perfect sense, I know.  And Republicans wonder why people think they don't have any actual plans other than "Let's do whatever Obama's not doing currently!"