A whiny cowardly Sr. Republican establishment aide, probably one who works for Boehner, is calling conservatives ‘assholes’ after they formed the House Freedom Caucus and are already being said to have killed a border bill:
ROLL CALL – The House Freedom Caucus is only a few weeks old, but some members say the new conservative faction is already pulling the House Republican Conference to the right. Before the HFC convened a single meeting, it so complicated the GOP debate on a proposed border security bill that leadership eventually had to pull the measure from the floor.
…
After two official meetings — the most recent, on Monday night, lasted almost two hours and went until nearly 9:30 p.m. — the HFC doesn’t have a chairman. As Jordan acknowledged, he might not even be the leader of the group. Some members pointed to Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho as a possible choice.
But whoever the leader is, the HFC could be a real thorn in leadership’s side. The group is already claiming victory in what was shaping up to be an intraparty showdown over Texas Rep. Michael McCaul’s border security bill.
The bill was purportedly pulled because of the weather, but is conspicuously not on the schedule this week, with no commitment from leaders that the House will ever take it up.
It’s an early bit of obstructionist momentum that worries some mainstream Republicans, who fear the faction is less about imparting a conservative vision and more about preventing anything from getting done.
“They’re not legislators, they’re just assholes,” a senior GOP aide told CQ Roll Call. “These guys have such a minority mindset that the prospect of getting something done just scares them away, or pisses them off.”
The aide said the Republican Study Committee, a larger and more established collection of conservatives, had shown some willingness to work with leadership. “So the fact that the RSC can’t be the ‘no’ caucus, they have to create their own ‘no’ caucus.”
The aide said the HFC — a collection of “the craziest of the crazy” — was obviously a repudiation of the current RSC.
Eric Ericson retweeted this call for an apology by Boehner:
.@SpeakerBoehner should apologize for Sr. GOP aide calling conservatives assholes. http://t.co/498kQxndsY
— Michael Needham (@MikeNeedham) February 4, 2015
I’m not sure it really matters. We know how they feel about conservatives who won’t stand it lockstep with the leadership if it means violating principles and cowering to the left.