First thing Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner
folded like a cheap suit in agreeing to hold a vote on a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill. Why would Boehner do this with entire
days left before the short-term funding passed last Friday night expires? After all, until now, he'd been holding out to pacify the extremists in his caucus who want to hold DHS funding hostage to an attack on President Obama's immigration actions, and folding now means he'll face rage from the right.
Hmm ... what else was going on Tuesday morning?
That's right, Boehner caved just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's highly politicized speech to Congress. The speech provided a massive distraction in the media—something some reporters, to their credit, noted. And Boehner can probably count on at least some of his far-right critics in the House being too exhausted from all their Netanyahu-induced orgasms to be as loud and frenzied in their outrage as might otherwise have been the case.
Once it became clear that the House's anti-immigrant DHS funding bill couldn't get through the Senate, it was inevitable that Boehner was going to cave. The question was when, and the safe money always seemed to be on "at the last possible moment." Instead, he found a way to bury his surrender under a distraction that he created by intentionally violating established protocol to invite Netanyahu to speak to Congress without having consulted the White House.
This news dump-like timing for Boehner's DHS cave may be the smoothest political move he's made in weeks. Congratulations, Mr. Speaker! (But Netanyahu's speech is over and you still have to get this vote through the House.)