Many years ago I read a study of people who had survived falls from great heights – including a WWII paratrooper who fell 22,000 feet with no parachute – and I was struck by the nearly universal reports of a calm, serene feeling while it was happening. There comes a point at which you become so thoroughly screwed that your body and brain team up to decide that there is no point in freaking out about it. You'd likely be panicked if you had to jump out of a third-story window or if you fell down a long flight of stairs, but when falling from 22,000 feet it isn't even worth it to scream or be scared. I'd have to imagine, as the survivors reported, that the most likely response would be along the lines of "Well I guess this is it."
On a smaller scale we all experience the same phenomenon. We routinely get bent out of shape about matters that are trivial at best, yet when we are faced with an actual serious problem – even insurmountable ones against which we can do nothing – we do a better job of taking it in stride. I have a friend who was evicted from his house in 2010 when it was foreclosed; I recall speaking to him a few days beforehand and asking him what he was going to do. "Well, the bank's going to take the house and I guess I'll stay somewhere else." It blew my mind. Objectively, that's a great way to handle it.
Watching – at least to the extent that I can stomach watching this – John Boehner during this congressional kabuki theater makes me feel like I'm seeing the same thing in the beleaguered speaker. I don't feel bad for him; when you sign up to be the captain of the U.S.S. Batshit you get what you deserve. But man does he look calm for a guy who is totally powerless to stop this trainwreck. He can't control the House GOP any more than he can control the weather, and he knows it. He's just…placid. Here is an orange-skinned man who no longer knows fear.
He knows how screwed he is and at this point he looks like he's considering getting hammered on Wild Turkey and riding the wave until it's over.
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He's pushing for a six week continuing resolution with the apparent hope that he'll come up with an idea in that time or fake his own death.
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However this is resolved – the usual last minute "compromise", a temporary shutdown, or a protracted battle – the common thread is that Boehner is a passenger in the process. He knows he is supposed to be in control, and nominally he is. He may not be a rocket scientist but he is smart enough to realize that the laws of physics have taken over and he's along for the ride. If I'm ever as screwed as he is at this moment, I hope I can experience the same kind of serenity.
Godspeed, Mr. Speaker.
middle seaman says:
Why should I feel sympathy to a group of people that believes that the world is cool and nice, that Darwin was drunk, that rape doesn't cause pregnancy, that Obama care is a catastrophe. Terrorists serving Satan aren't funny or cuddly.
I live in the Capital. If this continues, many friends will suffer.
wetcasements says:
What did Kubler Ross call the final stage? Oh, that's right — acceptance.
Daphne says:
I know that feeling of serenity. I get it at the end of each month when I've barely got a 2-digit balance in my bank account and it's the only money I have.
xynzee says:
It's hard to feel sorry for him as all he had to do is dump the Hastert Rule (again) and it would have been done with. You cannot tell me that there are not 18 sane Repubs in the House.
c u n d gulag says:
Personally, I think dropping Conservatives, parachute-less, from 22,000 feet, is too low.
I'd take them up to the edge of space, and drop them off, or push them the hell out.
At this point, they are Fascistic Nihilists who wave the flag and quote the Bible – without understanding what our Founding Fathers hoped for and intended, and completely not understanding any of Christ's messages.
'Please proceed, GOP. Please… Please, proceed.'
RosiesDad says:
That's brilliant, Ed. Really brilliant.
No, I don't feel sorry for Boehner either. But he could have avoided this for the good of the country simply by bringing a clean CR to the floor and allowing the few sane Republicans and the entire Democratic caucus to pass it. But gutless drunk that he is, he didn't.
It would have been the end of his Speakership but he would have gone out with one final act of courage and reasonableness.
So I hope that he goes up in flames. And I don't give a flying fck if he is serene or not.
Anonymouse says:
Well, it's perfectly clear now that the Teatards are willing to crash and burn the country rather than act like grownups.
OTOH, I got into a rather heated conversation yesterday with someone who I thought was better than that; her opinion is that the poor, sainted Republicans have tried and tried and have given up so much (my comment: Boehner bragged earlier about getting 98% of what he wanted–guess that 2% was a real "compromise", huh?). She blames all of this on that evvvvul black man in the white house. BTW, she married at 18 to a military man and spent 22 years as a stay-at-home mommy and military wife, and now works for the gov't at a payscale WAY beyond her actual ability level–but hates "socialized medicine" and "takers".
How do you introduce facts and reality to the completely brain-washed? You really can't, and sadly, so many people in this country are brainwashed by right-wing "news".
Ten Bears says:
Simple question: I think this an incredibly accurate analysis, and I wonder though if you too were to face that pain would not a belt or two o' Wild Turkey liquor brace the day? The guy totally beaten, knows it, but can not crawl away. Better Wild Turkey than Kool-Aid.
I wouldn't, but I have.
No fear.
Nan says:
"You cannot tell me that there are not 18 sane Repubs in the House."
Maybe Boehner realizes that's an unduly optimistic assumption.
John Danley says:
Speaking of orange skin and Wild Turkey, what is James Richard Perry up to these days?
quixote says:
It's not serenity. It's the Quaaludes.
(Taking drugs that were around when you were young is okay.)
FMguru says:
I'm pretty sure that Boehner's serene Zen demeanor owes less to the enlightened acceptance of his fate and more to the fact that he's so full of gin & tonic that he audibly sloshes when he walks.
Dave Dell says:
Where is the Speaker in the line of succession? Second, right after VP Biden. Maybe he can't/won't give up his speakership because he hopes for two lightning strikes that will make him President?
T in Texas says:
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Samuel Johnson.
Of course, Boehner's personal concern seems to be a primary challenge from the right, so his mind is concentrated on attempting to slip the political noose–at the nation's cost. Maybe that's why, over the last week, there have been stories mentioning that at times, the floor of Congress (and several congresscritters walking those floors) has been smelling like a distillery. But alas, no names, no names.
Also, sorry to nitpick. The person who survived the 22,000 foot fall was not a paratrooper, he was part of the aircrew of a B-17 that got shot down. I'm not even close to an expert, but I believe most if not all WWII US paratroop jumps were done using static lines. Wiki says, "Military static-line jumps range from 250 to 350 meters (800 to 1,200 ft)." (Think D-Day footage you might have seen.) I think HALO techniques were a relatively recent development (last 50 years, maybe?) You may have read the surviving aircrew man's story in the same 60's-era Reader's Digest that I did!
Xynzee says:
@T: I read the story in a moduled reading course (SRA?? I think) in elementary school. They think it was the trees that slowed him enough.
Ed Darrell says:
xynzee said:
Yeah, a lot of us are in denial about that.
daveawayfromhome says:
I refer to that state as "the zone of calm" and both love and fear it.
J. Dryden says:
They may be sane, but they are also attached to their jobs with a combination of cowardice and pride, rendering them incapable of doing anything that would encourage a Koch-fueled assault from the right in the next primary. All House members are less than 2 years from unemployment, and Fox News can and will insure that their voters do not forget who broke ranks and "collaborated with the enemy"/"betrayed their country".
I don't feel sorry for them any more than I feel sorry for people in the throes of heroin addiction–dude, you KNEW what you were getting into when you held that first spoon over the lighter–but I feel sad when I contemplate them, because whatever they once were or might have been is gone, and all that's left is a waste that knows nothing but pain and fear. Oh, and that gay marriage is evil and rape-produced pregnancies are a gift from God. Yeah, never mind, fuck those guys.
Leo Artunian says:
"He's just…flaccid."
Fixed.
drouse says:
According to a few tweets that I've seen, Boehner isn't the only one in a state of alcohol induced Zen.
Scotius says:
I can't say I'm too sorry for Boehner. I have the feeling he's through no matter what. Eventually, the Republicans are going to have to climb down and he's going to catch hell from the teabaggers to his right not to mention the moneybaggers from the Chamber of Commerce who will be pissed at the financial damage a government shutdown and debt ceiling game of chicken will do. Still, I'm not looking forward to seeing his replacement. With today's GOP, there's only one way to go and that's down.
Death Panel Truck says:
Alan Magee was a B-17 ball turret gunner, not a paratrooper. Paratroopers jumped from low altitudes (800 to 1,200 ft.)
noskilz says:
My suspicion is that Boehner does have job insurance of sorts: most of the people with the means and inclination to replace him also probably recognize that they'll fare no better than he will with the people he supposedly leads, so his position may be safe as long as he can endure it.
leithal says:
I would say his skin is more amber than orange.