John Boehner’s Holiday Party Snub [View all]

[DonViejo]

by Michelle Cottle Dec 5, 2012 4:45 AM EST

Speaker Boehner declines to be photographed with President Obama at a holiday party. Michelle Cottle on the roots of political pettiness—and what Boehner should do next year.

As party fouls go, John Boehner’s declining to get his photo taken with President Obama at the White House Christmas soiree is pretty innocuous. It’s not like the Speaker lit up in the Blue Room, or started snacking on the traditional gingerbread White House, or tied one on and began crooning Clarence Carter’s “Backdoor Santa” to FLOTUS. (Although, how fantastic would that have been?)

Nonetheless, Boehner’s photographic demurral—like his ongoing refusal to attend State dinners—stands as yet one more example of the lack of civility and general pettiness that now reign inside the Beltway.

Of course, it also stands as proof that the speaker is no idiot and that he knows all too well that, should a merry grip-and-grin of him and Obama somehow make its way into the public eye during these oh-so-tense fiscal-cliff negotiations, the GOP’s right flank would be all over his perma-tanned hide like a duck on a june bug.

“Next thing you know, people in his caucus would be grumbling, ‘He’s just not a believer like us. He’s over there yukking it up with President Obama! Did you see that picture of him and Obama together!’ I’m sure that went through his mind,” chuckles Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

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more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/05/john-boehner-s-holiday-party-snub.html