That's Not What That Means: Boehner Cashes Out with Our Money

During budget negotiations over the past week, Speaker of the House John Boehner(R) made headlines by getting up and walking out of an active negotiation meeting, leaving the rest of the House and President Barack Obama to sit there. An unconfirmed report from this guy I know who sometimes looks at an intern says that the general attitude in Washington now is, "Why is he the speaker? If he was an average Representative we could have just moved on."

In one of the most recent cases of playground diplomacy on camera, Obama called a press conference to speculate out loud as to whether or not someone who is Republican even has the ability to reason, err... say yes, and finally showed some anger, in contrast to his normal feelings of either happy or slightly disappointed in America.

Overnight both men went home, and their mothers explained that they needed to play nice because they were going to be in the same class for the rest of this year and probably a little while longer. They both promised to apologize the next day, and were sent to bed without dessert, though Obama snuck a cookie later.

The next morning, Boehner explained himself by saying that he was angry that Obama had moved the goalposts. I don't know about you, but I didn't even know what that meant, so I did what any person who impersonates a journalist on their blog would do and googled it.

During the 80's, the phrase "move the goalposts" was used to describe changing the goals of something either as or just before the initial goals were met. It kind of reminded me of when my teachers would say my papers had to be five pages long, and then after I turned them in, I was told that the aforementioned five pages had to all contain "text." I wish I had this clever little phrase then so my speech to encourage class rebellion would have had a better sound byte.

But in this situation, it doesn't really make too much sense. Obama can't order Boehner really, only the rules of government can do that, and they started writing those down to keep them from moving the goalposts after they made Lincoln free the slaves because all men suddenly became equal one day. Even if we look at Obama's demands in this case, it would be stupid for him to not move the non-goalpost goalposts, because this is a negotiation. If someone isn't moving their goalposts, they're probably a huge dick, because they knew they were going to be negotiating, but they didn't intend to change anything. I don't know about you, but in the event I start mislabelling everything as a goalpost, I want my politician to keep changing his goalpost, because bargaining and consensus is what the federal government is supposed to be in charge of. Ideally, everyone would want things the way I do and then we could just agree, but since people like different things, I would like politicans to try and just keep things generally agreeable for everyone.

It makes a little more sense when you realize that Boehner genuinely believes that American politics is a game. Later that day, he also let everyone know that he was going to call Obama's bluff. After realized that Obama's mountain didn't actually own a telephone, I looked up alternate definitions, and a bluff is when you have nothing good in your hand, but you pretend in hopes that your opponent will just quit. I don't see how Obama has nothing in his hand, seeing as how he has the support of most of the Democrats, some of the Republicans, and veto power at the end of the day. If anything, he seems to have a royal flush, while Boehner sits and wonders why his constant orders to go fish go unheeded. I guess it's pretty easy to call bluffs and bluff when you are doing it with taxpayer money, but I would say keep it within reason.

Personally, if I was him, I would stop using these little game idioms, because he isn't using them correctly at all, and they make him sound like a douchebag. Instead, he could sit down and work on debating which points of the budget plan would help get the American economy out of the slump, or at the very least help improve confidence in our governing bodies, because right now it seems like everyone is losing, and eventually you have to stop playing for the win, and hope to score a couple of pride points right before the buzzer.