YouBoob: John Boehner goes ballistic, then viral

One of the more sadly astonishing but thoroughly entertaining moments of Sunday’s health-care vote in the House of Representatives came from an unlikely source.

If you were watching the proceedings, you must have seen Ohio Republican congressman John Boehner speaking passionately against the legislation. Actually, “passionately” doesn’t quite describe it. Boehner was clearly off his meds that day, cranking up his address to a fever pitch so quickly, he looked to be having a kind of non compos mentis grand mal seizure.



The genuine article looks bad enough. The unbridled, free-floating rage of the conservatives and their supporters is distilled in Boehner’s call-and-response outburst. But the congressman’s antics will be preserved on more than videotape and in the pages of the Congressional Record.

Someone (God love you whoever you are) reedited Will.i.am’s moving Obama “Yes We Can” campaign video from 2008, adding a loop of Boehner’s rant in counterpoint to the original music track. The remix’s been posted to YouTube, like everything else in creation.

It is hard to imagine any contrast of visuals, any clash of soundbites that more perfectly illustrates the mindsets, the differing philosophies between Republican lawmakers and everyday people. This is the contrast, as stark and plain as black and white, day and night, no and yes.

This is what we’re up against.