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Here is John Boehner, the leader of the House of Representatives and third in line for the presidency:

When you look at this chaos that’s going on, does anybody think that Vladimir Putin would have gone into Crimea had George W. Bush been president of the United States? No! Even Putin is smart enough to know that Bush would have punched him in the nose in about 10 seconds.

Look, I get it: I’m a partisan, and right now I’m blogging through a slight bit of a morphine haze. But WTF? Have our political leaders always talked like this? This is just ridiculously juvenile.

And while we’re on the subject, I note that Boehner also said this: “I talk to world leaders every week. They want America to lead. They’re begging America to lead. Because when America leads and America’s strong, the world is a safer place.” Ten bucks says Boehner is basically lying, unless by “world leaders” he means Paul Ryan and the odd backbencher in London he happens to have played golf with a couple of years ago. As anyone with a pulse knows, world leaders simply have different priorities than we do. It’s the Europeans who are resisting stronger action against Putin. It’s the Turks who aren’t too interested in saving Kobani. It’s the Saudis who want us to devote all our attention to their longtime Shiite enemies. It’s Angela Merkel who’s single-mindedly intent on destroying the European economy. If John Boehner thinks all these folks are eagerly waiting for America to whip them into line, he’s even more delusional than I thought.