Is Ryan about to get Boehnered?

It’s hard to imagine there could be any kind of silver lining to the horrific events in Colorado Springs last Friday, but one small positive consequence might be that the right wing will not be as anxious to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding this month. It’s hard to believe they thought this would be an effective tactic in the first place, but it’s possible that the killing of three people, including a police officer, and wounding nine others may have made them decide that this might not be the best time for an ostentatious showdown over their anti-abortion crusade. House majority leader Kevin McCarthy said on Monday that “security is becoming the top issue” and he doesn’t “hear people shutting the government down over [Planned Parenthood] right now.”

If Kevin McCarthy hasn’t once again screwed the pooch by opening his big mouth, this likely comes as some relief to the new Speaker, Paul Ryan, who had to have been dreading the prospect of dealing with the anti-abortion zealots in his party who were planning to hold the must-pass Omnibus spending bill hostage to score political points and wreak havoc with the federal government. It was, after all, this issue that brought an end to Speaker John Boehner’s career.

You’ll recall that Boehner had tried for months to appease the social conservative base which had been smarting from its loss on marriage equality and felt that it was being take for granted by the GOP. When the edited footage from the Center for Medical Progress was publicly released, it gave this faction a new focus for its energy and the GOP establishment was happy to help.  Indeed, the activist filmmakers had consulted with Republican members of congress weeks in advance of the release and they appear to have coordinated the response. From the moment the edited tapes were made public, Republicans at all levels pulled out every rhetorical stop to condemn them, with Boehner himself saying “I could talk about the video but I think I’d vomit trying to talk about it. It’s disgusting.”

Knowing that the fervor for shutting down the government over this issue was growing — and also knowing that it would be lethal for Republicans in an election year — Boehner and other establishment Republicans worked overtime to mollify these zealots by throwing out the most incendiary rhetoric they could imagine, almost always including their patented slogan: “baby parts.” They convened a variety of committee investigations and held hearings with names like “Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider.” Boehner even created a “Benghazi” level select House committee which they fatuously named the “Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.” All of this was done in the hopes that if they threw out enough vitriol and anger, they could somehow keep the angry social conservatives under control.

Boehner thundered to reporters, “the goal here is not to shut down the government, the goal is to stop these horrific practices of organizations selling baby parts!”

But it didn’t work. As the October 1st drop-dead date drew near and the radicals threatened to relieve him of his job if he refused to force a confrontation with the White House over this issue, Boehner saw the writing on the wall. These people were not going to be placated with fierce language and a promise to “investigate.” They wanted action. So he decided to step down, hoping that a new speaker’s honeymoon would paper over these problems long enough to get them through the election without another governing crisis.