rise to, you might remember this, the john boehner is bad at his job hypothesis, which we have talked about on the air several times well, we ve talked about it a lot. in the big picture, though, to be totally fair, john boehner may have been bad at the job of being speaker of the house but it is unclear whether anybody could have been good at it, whether anybody could have done better. because of what republican politics is now. i mean, yeah, he had big republican majorities, but they were fractious as all get out, aggressively combative. republicans right now enjoy fighting with their own leadership maybe even more than they enjoy fighting with democrats. and because john boehner could not corral, could never corral any of his numbers to doing any one thing, he very frequently to resort to asking the democrats if they could lend him some votes to help him pass even the very basic stuff. i mean-h that was how he passed hurricane sandy relief. that s how he finally got the
couldn t figure out basic stuff, like how to stop their own side from fighting in public or how to just keep the lights on, keep the government running, when they weren t trying to shut it down. and we called that the john boehner is bad at his job hypothesis. the republican presidential campaign has now, unexpectedly, but i think, unavoidably, given birth to the jeb bush is bad at his job hypothesis. and nobody would have expected this, from a guy who s the third presidential candidate from the same nuclear family that includes two other presidents. but jeb bush really is, unexpectedly, bad at running for president. and i say that with no malice. i say that as an observer of his political skills. and i think it s becoming increasingly important, for an increasingly wide circle of people. today, his latest bowl of confusion happened on the issue of immigration. republicans following donald trump s lead this year, they have decided that people born in the united states should not be cit
that was just another unforced political error. at the weekly standard, a conservative writer named john mccormack responded to that mistake by saying, quote, isn t one benefit of an establishment candidate supposed to be that he s not going to make gaffes like this? jeb bush, after he made that gaffe, did put out a written statement, trying to take it back. taking back what he said about women s health. he said he misspoke about that. in response to that, craig robinson, a longtime republican operative in iowa, told politico.com, quote, every time jeb bush has stuck his foot in his mouth, it s been a cleanup on aisle 3 moment. i think it shows a real lack of message discipline with bush. we ve seen more errors out of jeb bush this campaign than most of the other candidates. which is true. we used to do something on this show called the john boehner is bad at his job hypothesis. it was when the republicans took over control of congress in
political error. at the weekly standard, a conservative writer named john mccormack responded to that mistake by saying, quote, isn t one benefit of an establishment candidate supposed to be that he s not going to make gaffes like this? jeb bush, after he made that gaffe, did put out a written statement, trying to take it back. taking back what he said about women s health. he said he misspoke about that. in response to that, craig robinson, a longtime republican operative in iowa, told politico.com, quote, every time jeb bush has stuck his foot in his mouth, it s been a cleanup on aisle 3 moment. i think it shows a real lack of message discipline with bush. we ve seen more errors out of jeb bush this campaign than most of the other candidates. which is true. we used to do something on this show called the john boehner is bad at his job hypothesis. it was when the republicans took over control of congress in 2010, but it felt like they just couldn t even get the basic stuff done to r
stuff done to run congress, because their leadership couldn t figure out basic stuff, like how to stop their own side from fighting in public or how to just keep the lights on, keep the government running, when they weren t trying to shut it down. and we called that the john boehner is bad at his job hypothesis. the republican presidential campaign has now, unexpectedly, but i think, unavoidably, given birth to the jeb bush is bad at his job hypothesis. and nobody would have expected this, from a guy who s the third presidential candidate from the same nuclear family that includes two other presidents. but jeb bush really is, unexpectedly, bad at running for president. and i say that with no malice. i say that as an observer of his political skills. and i think it s becoming increasingly important, for an increasingly wide circle of people. today, his latest bowl of confusion happened on the issue of immigration. republicans following donald trump s lead this year, they have decided th