John Boehner Would Rather Be Golfing-- Let's Not Give Wall Street A Hole In One By Letting Him Get To The Speaker's Chair

One of the anti-Obama right wing e-mailing circles sent out another of their endless attacks on the president, this time because he played some golf this week. They acknowledged it's a "relaxing game, and a game for all ages" but they went for the jugular: "Do you think it’s appropriate to play golf while lives are being ruined, economies destroyed, and the environment damaged beyond repair? Then congratulations-- you are an Obama-level golf fanatic."

An Obama-level golf fanatic? What would that make John Boehner, who spent one out of three days last year on the links? And they're bitching because Obama played ten times! Boehner managed to crawl out of his tanning booth 119 times! Then they attacked Obama because the First lady went down to the Gulf. "He has focused on everything but the challenges facing the Gulf, and avoided assuming the responsibilities of his office. Bold new leadership? Hardly."

Had enough? Then tell us: since the beginning of the Gulf crisis, which of President Obama's actions have left you furious? You can use our simple widget at GOP.com to let the world know that the President's refusal to do his job is unacceptable. FORE!

Last year Jake Sherman at Politico did a little digging into Boehner's golfing shenanigans. Boehner's PAC spent over 80 grand on golfing outings in the first half of the year. "And the minority leader," Sherman wrote, "doesn’t hold his events at worn-out municipal courses. The most recent outing was a $20,921.34 event at the plush Robert Trent Jones track in Gainesville, Va., an invitation-only private club that was once also home to the Professional Golfers Association's President’s Cup."

DWT covered this last November from the perspective of how little Boehner did for his fellow Republicans' electoral chances.

If you've donated to John Boehner's political action committee, the misnamed Freedom Project PAC, which spent $2,693,033 in 2008, and has already sucked up over a million dollars this year, let me be the first progressive to thank you for the donation. Although a significant amount of your donations was wasted-- in chunks above $10,000 each-- on political losers like Greg Davis (R-MS), Phil English (R-PA), Jay Love (R-AL), Andy Harris (R-MD), Chris Shays (R-CT), Dean Andal (R-CA), Vito Fossella (R-NY), David Cappiello (R-CT), John Stone (R-GA), Fred Dailey (R-OH), Darren White (R-NM), Keith Fimian (R-VA), John Gard (R-WI), and Rick Goddard (R-GA), far more went towards sating the Minority Leader's golf addiction.

The Muirfield Village Golf Club ($41,374), Disney Resorts ($28,787), Big Horn Golf Club ($25,310 + $18,357), Walt Disney Parks & Resorts ($25,200), The Greenbrier ($22,412), La Quinta Resort ($21,818) each got far more than any Republican candidate running for office-- any office. And Boehner is spending at tony golf resorts at the same clip this year. Even with GOP candidates dropping out of races because of an inability to raise money, the high living Minority Leader has already dropped another $29,501-- in campaign contributions-- at the Muirfield Village Golf Club. He spent even more at the Ritz Carlton in Naples (where the golfing is supposed to be sublime). Fact of the matter is, Boehner has already spent around $83,000 on golfing junkets this year. And we are so happy to see that money being spent that way instead of towards electing right wing lunatics.

One Republican electoral expert told us, after lots of prodding and a fifth beer, that had Boehner used that money he's been wasting on golf excursions on Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost to some little known healthcare-supporting Democrat, Hoffman would have been in Congress and been the deciding vote to stop the healthcare reform bill!

It's only more recently that the Beltway press has exposed Boehner as a lazy lush, who spends all his time when he's not out on the links, bar-hopping and getting drunk... which probably explains his delusional statements about Obama "snuffing out the America that I grew up in." A couple days ago Greg Sargent, in his Washington Post column, dealt with Boehner's drastic little re-write of history. Although gays and women and minorities were still treated as second class citizens when little Boehner was wearing short pants, "the Republican Party platform of 1960," Sargent wrote, referencing the year Boehner was 11, "hailed the GOP's success in extending unemployment insurance. The GOP counted as an achievement its efforts to raise the federal minimum wage. The platform hailed expanded Social Security coverage and pledged an aggressive federal effort to help those struggling with health care costs (in those pre-Medicare days, the primary focus was the elderly). It pledged to continue robust federal intervention to preserve the environment."

Blue America was inspired by Boehner's golfing prowess and suggestions by Congressmen Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Alan Grayson (D-FL) to get a golfing billboard up in southwest Ohio to remind voters there what Boehner does with his time. So, this weekend we're starting a little "contest."

Boehner would probably be more likely to see one of these billboards if we put it up around Florida where he spends most of his time golfing but it's really more for his constituents than for him anyway. We decided to place it just outside Boehner's gated community in Wetherington on I-75, a couple miles from Touchdown Jesus. If you prefer one particular billboard design, please donate to our fund to get it up in Butler County by clicking on the image you like best. We'll choose the billboard design that gets the most "votes"-- a vote being defined as a contribution, regardless of amount. (In other words, whether you give $1.00 or $100, it's one vote.)

Now the good news: our friends at the AFL-CIO and People For the American Way Voters Alliance are big fans of Justin Coussoule, the progressive Democrat running against Boehner, and each is offering to match whatever you donate on this page. So... give $10 and the billboard fund winds up with $30. How's that for a deal? If you want to read more about Justin, we did a live blogging session with him at Crooks and Liars back in April.

Here are all six billboards on one page. Each billboard is a live link to its respective fundraising page. So just click on the one you like best and... vote.






























UPDATE: People Think Obama Deserves A Little Rest

The GOP has manufactured another silly hissy fit about Obama's vacation in Maine. It isn't working. Here's a poll on it: