John Boehner's Restless Retirement

Politico's Tim Alberta has an absolutely must-read piece out on former House Speaker John Boehner. It's a terrific piece of reporting, highly entertaining, and full of interesting tidbits about why Boehner was so good at his job -- and why that often wasn't good enough for the current Republican Party.

My only nitpick with the piece (and I'm not sure if it's Alberta's fault or Boehner's) is the overemphasis on the importance of earmarks -- rather, the importance of eliminating earmarks in explaining why Boehner had so much trouble rounding up votes. I suspect it was close to irrelevant. There are plenty of ways to deliver particularized benefits to certain districts without earmarks. If Boehner didn't do it, it's either because he wasn't creative enough or that the true problem was a bunch of Republicans who didn't care about delivering goodies to the folks back home.