It was just a week ago that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) unveiled his long-awaited lawsuit against President Obama, which immediately landed with a thud . After weeks of buildup about a lawless, out-of-control White House, Boehner identified one executive action worthy of litigation: a shift in a deadline for an obscure Affordable Care Act provision.

Making matters slightly worse, the Republican Speaker was suing to require the Obama administration to immediately implement a policy the Speaker does not actually want to see implemented.

Yesterday was supposed to be a day for the case to get back on track, starting with a House Rules Committee hearing featuring two witnesses, both of whom would explain why the lawsuit has merit. Republicans could have chosen any two witnesses in the country, but for one of the slots, they chose a law professor, Florida International University’s Elizabeth Price Foley, who recently argued the lawsuit would be thrown out of court . She wrote in February:

When a president delays or exempts people from a law – so-called benevolent suspensions – who has standing to sue him? Generally, no one. Benevolent suspensions of law don’t, by definition, create a sufficiently concrete injury for standing. That’s why, when President Obama delayed various provisions of Obamacare – the employer mandate, the annual out-of-pocket caps, the prohibition on the sale of “substandard” policies – his actions cannot be challenged in court.

When a president delays or exempts people from a law – so-called benevolent suspensions – who has standing to sue him? Generally, no one. Benevolent suspensions of law don’t, by definition, create a sufficiently concrete injury for standing. That’s why, when President Obama delayed various provisions of Obamacare – the employer mandate, the annual out-of-pocket caps, the prohibition on the sale of “substandard” policies – his actions cannot be challenged in court.

So, Republicans picked a witness to argue the polar opposite of what she’d already argued.

Worse still, Boehner hasn’t fully convinced his own members that the lawsuit is worthwhile.

After Boehner said last week that immigration reform was officially dead for the year, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart took a swipe at his own leadership by arguing that the best way to curb the threat of Obama’s executive action on the matter was to actually pass legislation – an implicit rejection of the rationale behind Boehner’s lawsuit.

And yesterday, during a speech at Hillsdale College, Rep. Paul Ryan offered his own thoughts on asking judges to intervene in political fights: