One of my favorite books of all time is Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, a highly entertaining
if occasionally profane history of the Mercury 7 astronaut program that made Alan
Shepherd and John Glenn national heroes, among others.
If you lost control of your plane, got something wrong in
flight, or generally lost your nerve as a pilot, Wolfe’s flyboys would say you
“screwed the pooch.” For a pilot,
screwing the pooch is hard to live down and ultimately shakes your confidence
to the core.
Much has been written in recent days about why John Boehner
has completely lost his nerve, if not all of his marbles, by failing utterly to
step up and actually behave as a Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Some of my political friends are eager to give the Speaker
the benefit of the doubt: he’s “playing
chicken,” they say, waiting for his moment to do the right thing. Other friends say he can’t see a way out of his predicament or, worse, doesn’t have the
courage to act because he cares more about his title than his country.
I’m leaning – uneasily – in the direction of the first point
of view. Because Speaker Boehner can
turn this around if he wants before our country becomes completely ungovernable
and your job security, home values and retirement savings disappear in what the
smartest people on Wall Street are saying will be a financial Armageddon if the
debt ceiling isn’t raised.
But if the unthinkable does happens, members of the Tea
Party Caucus will quickly realize the high cost of being reckless “true
believers.” How will they know? They’ll see if in the eyes of friends and
family, knocked back on their heels as they open their 401K statements. They’ll see it in the number of “For Sale”
signs that suddenly and desperately blossom on their district streets as interest rates go through the
roof. They’ll see it in the distracted,
distressed way their once-strong supporters look at them when they pass by.
They’ll see it when they look in the mirror.
And that, my friends, is screwing the pooch.
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