A few days ago Robert Bork died. He was someone up for a Supreme Court appointment who didn’t get the job because in Senate hearings Democrats trashed his nomination using his previous outspoken writings on issues that would come before the court. To get “borked” then became a term denoting someone who gets an unwelcome payback for past words or deeds from long-time opponents.
Yesterday House Speaker John Boehner tried unsuccessfully to get his Republican majority in the House to pass a bill heavily weighted toward the extreme views of his party, but not quite extreme enough for the extremists in his party. The Speaker was much weakened politically by this defeat.
This defeat was actually a perfect example of something that is happening increasingly in our fractured politics, and indeed, in our increasingly polarized society. People who try to accommodate the far reaches of a viewpoint with deals that almost but not exactly meld with this fixed viewpoint come away failing in situations that common sense suggested couldn’t possibly fail.
Hence, the Speaker’s own experience introduces a new term in our language: to “get “boehnered.” It denotes getting it in the back, coming away diminished or defeated by people you thought were on your side and you could deal with by giving them almost everything they wanted, only to discover these people feel so entitled and empowered that it’s all their way or the highway.
Sample usage: “I got boehnered the other day at school because my term paper, which the teacher admitted was great, was only 1,484 words instead of the 1,500 he had assigned.” Or: “I got boehnered because the project I did at work turned out perfect but the boss refused to consider it because he said I should have been working on another project instead.”
Congratulations, Mr. Speaker. You’ve been immortalized. Now maybe you should avoid getting boehnered again in the future by dealing with Democrats and the members of your party (there are some) who aren’t total nutcakes.
The new comic from the writer of this post is entitled: The Bellman’s Revenge.