Obama sends a message in his praise for Boehner
Taking a moment to laud the patriotism of retiring House Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday, President Obama also jabbed at Boehner’s fellow House Republicans as they threatened to shut down the federal government rather than work out a deal with the White House over the budget.
In an homage to the dying art of compromise, Obama called Boehner “a good man” and “a patriot” who understands that elected officials who care about America must work with people with whom they disagree in order to do the people’s business — a hardly veiled swipe at the congressional GOP.
Obama revealed his concern that conservatives will refuse to fund the federal government beyond the end of the fiscal year coming next week, choosing to let government services and operations shut down rather than continue funding the women’s health service network of Planned Parenthood.
“We can have significant differences on issues,” Obama said. “But that doesn’t mean you shut down the government.”
He called the continuing operation of the government “the basic work of governance.”
“There’s no weakness in that. That’s what government is,” Obama said. “In our democracy, you don’t get what you want 100% of the time.”
He spoke of the budget standoff in 2011, which nearly led to a government shutdown and default over the federal debt.
“Hopefully, they’ve learned some lessons from 2011,” said Obama, recounting “the last time they tried to introduce a nonbudget item into budget discussions.”
Obama’s remarks also revealed a personal respect for Boehner, a doctrinal conservative whose long tenure in the House of Representatives reaches back to a time when that credential meant working regularly with liberals.
Boehner and Obama tried to work out agreements on significant budget and policy matters. But Obama, conscious of Boehner’s caucus politics and the fact that his ranks reviled the Democratic president, generally kept his praise of the speaker to himself.
On Friday, Obama said he hoped House Republicans would heed the example of Pope Francis, who addressed Congress the day before at Boehner’s invitation and spoke of the need for politicians to accept compromise in order to work toward a “common good.”
Perhaps that visit, said Obama, “changed hearts and minds.”
“I would just ask members to really reflect on what his holiness said — not in the particulars, but in the general proposition that we should be open to each other, we should not demonize each other, we should not assume that we have a monopoly on the truth or on what’s right, that we listen to each other and show each other respect, and that we show regard for the most vulnerable in our society.”
That, he added, “is who John Boehner is.”
On Friday, as soon as Obama emerged from a private meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and heard of Boehner’s plans to step down, the president telephoned the speaker to ask whether it was true.
And in his side-by-side news conference with Xi, he devoted several minutes to talking about Boehner’s strengths as a statesman, contrasting him with fiercely conservative members of his caucus.