DID SPEAKER BOEHNER DISRESPECT THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT?

 

It is appearing that Speaker Boehner has no clue that he disrespected the highest office in the land.

Regardless of whether you agree that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) should have invited the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak before congress, you should be aware that the conservative website www.forbes.com published a scathing article about Speaker Boehner's invitation.  The article’s title refers to the Prime Minister as "Bibi Netanyahu -- aka 'The Republican Senator From Israel'.

The article begins as a critical analysis of Netanyahu and how his actions may have, in fact, hindered his chances for his own re-election in Israel.

Now, I am no fan of the article’s author, Rick Unger, as Mr. Unger can be found every Saturday on “Forbes on Fox”, (Remember, the owner of Fox, Rupert Murcdoch, also owns the Wall Street Journal)

 

Mr. Unger is a bit too questionable for my views, plus he works for Fox.  That’s not a good recommendation for someone to offer real “truth & Justice”.  Even Mr. Unger writes in his own bio that, “He is a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty’ ”.  Yes, he’s very much a “token” as he  himself states, “I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers.”

But I digress.

The article does present the possibility that laws may have been broken in the process of Boehner’s direct invitation. 

We all know that the Speaker doesn’t like either the President or his policies.  But the Speaker obviously doesn’t understand the truly unprecedented step he has taken by joining with the leader of a foreign nation against his own president.

Presidents from both parties may come and go. However, the respect for the Office of the Presidency of the United States, particularly on the part of the House Speaker, who is next after the Vice President in the line of succession to the presidency.  Boehner definitely should know not to disrespecting this office.

In this direct invitation, this Speaker of the American House of Representatives has truly succeeded in embarrassing not just President Obama, but the Office of the President.

By this direct invitation to the leader of another nation, Boehner may have scored some points for his party and for his party’s preferred policy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear negotiations.  But since the Speaker has yet to accomplish anything of note in his Speakership, one can only wonder how he must feel if his main legacy as Speaker becomes the disgracing of the Office of the American President.  And doing it by bolstering the politics of a foreign leader.

The legal-beagles are still determining if any laws were broken with this direct invitation, or if it was just a problem of diplomatic protocol being broken.

But there does seem to be a consensus.

That consensus being, what Mr. Unger wrote in finishing his Forbes article:

Per Mr. Unger: “Seeking to damage any American President by helping a foreign leader embarrass our own leader can never be considered something that is best for the nation. And that is simply the truth, no matter what your political persuasion or your feelings [are] about the current occupant of the Oval Office.”

Copyright G.Ater  2015