The idiom “politics makes strange bedfellows” doesn’t hold much water these days, since it implies people of widely divergent views working together for a single cause, compromising, sometimes even for the greater good. But that doesn’t happen much any more, if at all, due our “niche” political “system.” (When members of the GOP can’t agree among themselves, it makes it that much more difficult to ever make a deal with the Democrats.)
In Congress, the changing of the Speaker of the House guard from John Boehner to Paul Ryan reveals not bedfellows, but rather oddfellows.
For example, John Boehner took his smoking addiction so seriously that he insisted on smoking in his House office, (despite a smoking ban throughout the Capitol, instituted by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2007) because smoking laws are for peons. (Or “civilians,” as many occupations and professions call the public, with whom, for the most part, they are irritated that they have to deal with them. In fact, so many occupations and professions call the public “civilians” that there can’t be that many “civilians” left who don’t belong to such a group.)
Meanwhile, enter Paul Ryan, the health-conscious Congressman who was finally persuaded by his divided party to become Speaker of the House. (Ryan is so health conscious he once claimed that he ran a marathon in less than three hours, which would put him in a very elite niche of runners. But some pesky journalist, the kind Ben Carson wants you to ignore, actually looked up Ryan’s marathon time, which was a respectable and much more believable 4 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.)
Anyway, Ryan — as anyone would, fitness buff or not — most understandably objected to the noxious, nicotiney state of the Speaker’s office.
“They have these ozone machines, apparently, that you can detoxify the environment. But I’m going to have to work on the carpeting in here,” Ryan told the NBC program “Meet the Press.” Good luck with that.
Creating a non-toxic office is doubly important for the speaker, because it turns out he doesn’t rent an apartment in Washington, D.C., but rather lives and sleeps in his office. (So while it may not reek of cigarettes, Ryan’s current office might not smell so sweet, either.)
“I just work here. I don’t live here. So I get up very early in the morning. I work out. I work until about 11:30 at night. I go to bed. And I do the same thing the next day,” Ryan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
(Wow. Working until 11:30 every night. That’s a lot of work. Congress must have a long list of accomplishments!)
Ryan insists he’s just a “normal guy.” But people who aren’t congressmen, the civilians, know that they couldn’t live, OK, “sleep” in their office (if for some reason they wanted to) instead of renting an apartment They would be fired.
The Capitol belongs to the civilians. It’s a small thing, but symbolic: For the sake of the office of the Speaker of the House — the position and the physical structure, is it too much to insist: No smoking, sub-letting or squatting?
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