Pope’s visit was a blessed exorcism for John Boehner
John Boehner stands smiling in front of the mirror in his English basement apartment on G Street on Capitol Hill. He breaks into song as he ties the four-in-hand knot in his bright green tie to get the perfect dimple.
“Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Zip-A-Dee-A, my, oh my, it’s almost my last day,” he belts. “Plenty of golf and sunshine heading my way.”
The Speaker speaks: “I’m almost free of these knuckleheads. That visit by Pope Francis was a blessed exorcism. I’m casting out the demons. Begone, Ted Cruz, you jackass! Away, Louie Gohmert! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, out you unclean devil, Mark Meadows. You wanted to get rid of me and I’m soon going to be rid of you.”
Boehner’s Blackberry ring-a-ding dings. He rolls his blue eyes. It’s another panicked call from Kevin McCarthy. Boehner is beginning to wonder if the kid just doesn’t have it, if he’s bombsville. McCarthy styled himself as one of the “young guns,” along with Eric Cantor, who misfired, and Paul Ryan, who can’t pull the trigger. Now Boehner’s worried that McCarthy might be a pop gun.
“Kevin, did you make another mess I gotta clean up?” the Speaker growls. “Stop blubbering. That’s my department. Obviously, you really stepped in it with that Benghazi crack on ‘Hannity.’
“We’ve spent 16 months and a lot of taxpayer dough persuading people that the Benghazi committee is a legitimate attempt to get to the bottom of what happened, not a way to drag down Hillary. As I like to say, always do the right things for the right reasons, unless you need to do the sneaky things for the wrong reasons.
“You can’t just go blurt out the truth — even on Fox. You managed to give Hillary the first break she’s had in months. I may have to email her my congratulations. But that’s classified.
“And Kevin, you might want to freshen up your wardrobe, hit Jos. A. Bank. And quit sleeping in your office. What did you do with that lottery money you won? No rent is lowrent.
“I gotta go. Remember: A leader who doesn’t have anybody following him is just a guy taking a walk.”
Boehner hangs up and tears up as he walks through Statuary Hall, recalling how he accompanied Pope Francis there, after the pontiff blessed the speaker’s first grandson.
“It was a miracle,” he thinks. “It suddenly hit me that I didn’t have to tough it out with these losers anymore. I’ve told reporters that garbagemen get used to the smell of bad garbage. But 25 years in, this place stinks to high heaven. The institution is filled with people who should be in an institution.”
Boehner fires up a Camel Ultra Light and heads out to his office balcony to stand in the Shoes of the Fisherman.
“I have four weeks to clean out the barn,” he muses. “I need to try one last time to strike some kind of bargain with Obama before I leave and he becomes an even lamer duck. We’ve at least got to increase the federal debt limit to keep these clowns from tanking the economy. After all, I’m gonna need some income, too.”
The Dean Martin of D.C. begins crooning the Disney lyric again. “‘Mister bluebird on my shoulder’ — oh wait, I don’t want some bird pooping on my Brooks Brothers suit and that’s the truth. But everything else, as the song says, is satisfactual.”