John Boehner Cries…Again

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Speaker John Boehner delivered the commencement address at Catholic University this morning, shedding a few tears while telling the graduates they should embody three virtues.

“Humility, patience and faith, and always a few tears from me,” Boehner said.

Boehner teared up during a story about the morning of his leadership election in 2006, when he went to 7 a.m. mass and prayed for the Virgin Mary’s guidance. When he thought he received no sign, he got a call from his former high school football coach, Gerry Faust, who went on to coach at Notre Dame.

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Ohio Tea Party Groups: “Sick of Boehner’s Tears!”

Is this the same John Boehner that Tea Party leaders fell in love with last November?

Compared to the Boehner who talked tough on spending ahead of last November’s elections, the one who showed up at Club 55, just off Interstate 75 in Troy in southwestern Ohio, struck them as timid.

The private April 25 meeting was convened by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at the request of Tea Party leaders, who were seething over recent Republican compromises, most notably on the 2011 budget.

One of the 25 or so leaders, all from Boehner’s district, asked him if Republicans would raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.

According to half a dozen attendees interviewed by Reuters, the most powerful Republican in Washington said “yes.”

“And we’re going to have to raise it again in the future,” he added. With the mass retirement of America’s Baby Boomers, he explained, it would take 20 years to balance the U.S. budget and 30 years after that to erase the nation’s huge fiscal deficit.

That answer incensed many of the Tea Party activists, for whom raising the debt limit is anathema.

“You could have knocked me out of my chair,” said Denise Robertson, a computer programer who belongs to the Preble County Liberty Group. “Fifty years?”

She said “my fantasy now” is someone will challenge Boehner in the 2012 Republican primaries. “If we could find someone good to run against him, I’d campaign for them every day,” Robertson said.

“I am sick of the tears,” she added, a sarcastic reference to Boehner’s famous propensity to cry. “I want results.”

This isn’t the first time Boehner’s friends Tea Party friends have expressed their frustration with his antics.  Back in late 2010, the Ohio Liberty Council blasted Boehner for his secret bid to do away with the Congressional Ethics Office.

Current disagreements of course are brewing over the upcoming vote to increase the debt ceiling.

The Reuters article continues:

Boehner, in a May 9 speech in New York, did insist that any increase to the debt limit include “cuts in trillions.” But conservatives expect the Republicans will not uphold his demand.

If the Republicans lose the debt limit battle, more Tea Party groups say they will aggressively seek candidates to challenge establishment figures in the 2012 primaries.

“At this point, all of them are potential targets,” said Dawn Wildman, president of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition, who lives in San Diego. “All the way up to Boehner.”