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Boehner and McConnell must go

There’s a new poll out on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) approval ratings. Hint: Things are not going well. 

Boehner has a 36 percent approval rating while McConnell sits at an all-time low of 35 percent. 

{mosads}It’s easy to see why: these two men are responsible for one GOP failure after another to deliver on its promises. 

Conservatives have long argued that Boehner and McConnell needed to lead on conservative issues. But both have led — in Democrats’ direction. 

So much so, in fact, that one wonders whether the country’s top two GOP leaders have been in cahoots with President Obama the entire time. 

It’s time to stop trying to salvage these two. It’s time for them to go. 

Let’s look at just the last few weeks. 

It is well established that Boehner and McConnell spent 2014 promising they would do everything they could to get rid of Obamacare, if voters returned both chambers of Congress to the GOP.
Now that Republicans control Congress, each time an opportunity has risen for GOP leadership to stop Obamacare they have backed down. Worse, Boehner and McConnell’s preferred strategy of punting Obamacare to the Supreme Court backfired, again, in spectacular fashion. 

When the 5-4 decision declaring gay marriage a right across the country came down, conservatives everywhere blasted the court’s overreach. Even Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been of little use to conservatives, made it explicitly clear that the decision was not constitutional. 

But Boehner and McConnell made it perfectly clear that they wouldn’t do anything to challenge the decision and it would not be a priority for the Republican Congress. 

The Left has already announced its intentions to challenge  religious institutions’ tax status, including Catholic schools and Catholic hospitals. You might think Boehner, who is a Catholic, might show a little concern for religious liberty. 

On one of the most important court decisions of our time where religious liberty could be threatened—where are our Republican leaders?

Filling the leadership void are Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Ida.), who have introduced religious liberty bills that would protect Christians, Jews, Muslims and other Americans of faith who reject the court’s decision. 

Why isn’t McConnell out front with Lee’s bill? Why isn’t Boehner promoting Labrador’s legislation? Both of these bills should’ve been on the floor of each chamber on Friday, June 26, at 10:01 a.m., one minute after the Supreme Court announced its decision. 

The White House gave Boehner and the GOP the middle finger when it was announced that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was destroyed.  The only way to get the IRS to jump to attention now is for Congress to levy its power of the purse to close the bank window to that office. That is the role of the U.S. House of Representatives and Boehner is abdicating it. 

The Benghazi drama continued in the Senate last month where there are still far too many questions and little to no satisfactory answers. Where is the leadership from McConnell in making sure the Obama Administration is held accountable for this massive intelligence failure? Imagine how Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would be acting if this kind of tragedy had occurred under a Republican president? 

Hillary Clinton stands to lose the most from Americans finding out the entire truth about what went down in this tragedy. You might expect a Republican to think this was important. 

When Trade Promotion Authority was passed, Republican leadership could have at least tried to get something for conservatives out of the deal from the White House—but Boehner and McConnell never asked, or thought to ask, and predictably got nothing. 

With these two in charge, conservatives never get anything. 

Conservatives worked hard to give Republicans back Congress. But how much good has this Republican Congress been? Of what tangible benefit has it been to conservatives? We keep losing, in battle after battle. 

And who is to blame? 

This embarrassing lack of results is the fault of two men, still pretending to be party leaders, who half the time don’t seem to know which party they’re in. 

They’re worse than incompetent. They’re in the way. The current Republican leadership has become a roadblock to everything conservatives want to achieve. 

When football teams lose over and over, eventually the coach gets fired. But this isn’t a game. Conservatives can’t afford to keep losing. 

For the soul of the party. For the good of the nation. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell must go.

Bozell is executive director of ForAmerica, a conservative advocacy group.

Tags Boehner Harry Reid Hillary Clinton John Boehner Mike Lee Mitch McConnell

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