The RP: John Boehner’s No Henry Clay, But I Blame the System

As part of today’s theme here at The Recovering Politician, the RP himself weighs in on the debt ceiling crisis consuming Washington.  Here is his column, cross-posted at The Huffington Post:

For my maiden political stump speech, I faced a daunting challenge.

I had not yet turned 30 years old, looked 22, and was desperately trying to convince a group of good-ole-boy county chairs that I was qualified to serve in the US Congress.

I decided to address the 800-pound elephant head-on: I noted that my hometown’s (Lexington, Kentucky) favorite son, Henry Clay, was only 29 when he was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 19th Century.

Of course, I simply was setting the crowd up for a joke. I pointed to my silver-haired friend in the front of the room, Terry McBrayer — a popular former state legislator, gubernatorial candidate, and state party chair — and told the crowd that Terry had warned me not to make the Clay comparison:

“Jonathan, I knew Henry Clay.  I served with Henry Clay.  And you’re no Henry Clay.”

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A few weeks ago, we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Clay’s ascension to the highest legislative position in the country.  Three of Clay’s successors (Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, and John Boehner) flew to Lexington to pay tribute. Reflecting on Clay’s extraordinary domestic diplomacy in the decades prior to the Civil War — earning him the nickname “The Great Compromiser” — Speaker Boehner remarked, “There was no one person more responsible for holding our union together than Henry Clay.”

I reflected on Boehner’s comments this past weekend. Our Union today is much too strong to worry about the existential threat posed in Clay’s era. But as we stare into the oncoming tsunami of potential credit default for the first time in the nation’s history — and as we watch Democrats and Republicans so bitterly divided that they are making a seemingly impossible impasse quite plausible — we sure could use a Henry Clay right about now.

And John Boehner is no Henry Clay.

Click here to read the rest of the RP’s column at The Huffington Post.