http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-new-york/boehner-s-poor-and-lazy-comments-to-rolling-stone-reflect-his-party-s-beliefs

Quote :

""Can't pay your student loan? Face it your parents were lazy and you couldn't afford college. The world needs ditch diggers and you were born into a family of them. Can't pay your mortgage? Your house was too expensive and you couldn't afford it."It's not going to happen in the US. The kids here are too fat, too lazy, to addicted to TV, fast food, cheap credit, and facebook.” "

John Boehner

4/5/2011 3:23:15 PM

This is the examiner, which means zero quality control or fact checking. Is it really believable to you that the speaker of the house would have made these comments to a hugely popular publication?

4/5/2011 3:28:13 PM

Quote :

"Taibbi has said he'll publish Boehner's full interview in the June edition of Rolling Stone "

4/5/2011 3:50:24 PM

This is clearly satire, dude.

4/5/2011 3:54:35 PM

As a Republican, I suspect this was actually said. It is the main problem I have with the GOP. Too black or white. No grey.

Some of the statement is straight shooting : "The kids here are too fat, too lazy, to addicted to TV, fast food, cheap credit, and facebook.”

Yeah, thats probably true. Its a pointed thing to say, but probably true.

"Can't pay your student loan? Face it your parents were lazy and you couldn't afford college. The world needs ditch diggers and you were born into a family of them. Can't pay your mortgage? Your house was too expensive and you couldn't afford it."

This is too harsh, and ultimately unfair. It casts a wide net to generalize problems that are complex, and then unfairly characterizes those people caught in those situations (thankfully, I am not one of them, so I can be more objective).

If he did say this, and it wasnt taken out of context, its going to be difficult to overcome. I understand where it comes from though. Democrats have pushed entitlements to such an extreme where its difficult not to take an extreme position. you almost have to in order to find a happy middle.

4/5/2011 3:59:20 PM

Quote :

"Democrats have pushed entitlements to such an extreme where its difficult not to take an extreme position. you almost have to in order to find a happy middle. "

Care to give me some examples of the entitlements you mention, and what percent of the federal gov't they take?

4/5/2011 6:05:49 PM

SS. Medicare. soon to be more than 50%

4/5/2011 6:20:34 PM

Sounds like it was taken out of context

4/5/2011 9:12:52 PM

Sounds like Boehner is a boner.

4/5/2011 9:57:05 PM

AHAHA

I love it when old people blame kids for grown-up disasters.

In 2008, when the stock market took a major dive, one of the morning cable news shows couldn't get through a minute of banter before they were on about how greedy and unrealistic children are. They whined about how you couldn't even take kids grocery shopping anymore because kids want everything and they don't understand the value of a dollar.

Unbelievable stuff us adults manage to come up with.

[Edited on April 5, 2011 at 11:22 PM. Reason : ]

4/5/2011 11:20:54 PM

the value of the word "NO" is priceless....

4/5/2011 11:45:43 PM

Baby boomers were a terrible generation and now they are trying to pass the blame.

4/6/2011 12:25:44 AM

Boner can't control his own party, at least Nancy GOT the votes when she needed the votes, Boner has so far been a pretty weak leader....

4/6/2011 12:51:48 AM

I'm fat and lazy, but I don't have student loans. What now?

4/6/2011 8:47:24 AM

Congratulations, you're a republican!

4/6/2011 10:43:52 AM

Looks like we have some poor Boehner control

4/6/2011 11:29:30 AM

bad parenting
bad parenting
bad parenting
bad parenting
bad parenting
bad parenting

4/6/2011 12:07:45 PM

I'm still in shock that most of you buy this, when the main source is "rumormiller.com." Then again, it's not too surprising, you're a pretty gullible bunch. No one with the political acumen to get elected and become speaker of the house would be caught saying "The world needs ditch diggers and you were born into a family of them," unless the statement was taken completely out of context.

4/6/2011 12:15:31 PM

the older generation raised us this way. blame game goes both ways.

4/6/2011 1:33:11 PM

^^It seems unlikely that he would say it, but Boehner is a bit of a lush.

4/6/2011 5:12:29 PM

There's no way.

1) As d357r0y3r says, the man is speaker of the house and a veteran of politics. He knows how "on/off the record" works.
2) He knows it's Rolling Stone, too. He knows it's not a Republican-friendly publication, and he knows that within the past year an overly-candid interview destroyed Stan McChrystal's career. He could be drunk as a goddamn monkey and stick to his talking points with these people, because clearly they'll be happy to exploit any errors.
3) If there were any halfway decent evidence of him saying this, to a member of the press no less, everyone on the left and plenty of folks on the right would be asking for his head on a platter. I'm hearing nary a peep. You don't think Nancy Pelosi would be laughing her leathery tits off at this on every major network?

4/6/2011 5:26:05 PM

From the linked Examiner article itself, very first paragraph in big, bold and italicized letters (bold in the quote below is my own emphasis):

Quote :

"Note: This story originated on Rumormiller which is s NOT a news site. It's a site meant to spur discussion often through satire. Regardless of whether or not this story is true, it's safe to say it's not a stretch from how the Republican's view the poor and middle class. Source: http://www.redesign.rumormiller.com/story.php?title=boehner-the-poor-and-lazy-caused-current-crisis-1"

I would reinterpret this as "Regardless of whether or not this story is true, it's safe to say that it's not a stretch from how political enemies of the Speaker think the Republicans view the poor and middle class."

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 5:34 PM. Reason : Tags]

4/6/2011 5:34:16 PM

If we're really digging into this, I'll add that the only reason I think it might be true is because it's horrible, horrible satire.

[Edited on April 6, 2011 at 5:49 PM. Reason : It's really bad.]

4/6/2011 5:48:36 PM