Boehner Finally Responds To "Small Price" Criticism -- And Dissembles So Blatantly That Even Fox Calls Him On It!
September 20, 2007 -- 1:26 PM EST // //

Okay, this is a fun postcript to the whole battle over John Bohner's "small price" remark, which this blog first reported on a couple of weeks ago.

Boehner has finally responded personally on television for the first time to all the criticism of his remark, a sign that the beating he's taking for it has gotten so bad that it's time for some heavy-duty damage control. Not surprisingly, the venue he selected for his response was an interview with Fox News.

But in the interview, Boehner dissembled so ostentatiously about his initial comments that even Fox News couldn't help but call him on it. Take a look:

Boehner's key pushback:

"The question was about the money."

In response, Fox News pointed out in its report that the question was in fact about troop deaths, too -- and Fox pointed this out twice. In this regard, Fox News outdid even the august The New York Times's botched coverage of this. Never thought I'd be saying this, but good for Fox.

Meanwhile, it's kind of surprising that even Fox, of all organizations, finally recognized the news value of this story -- even as many, many, many of the big news orgs that lavished tons of coverage on John Kerry's botched troop joke continue to ignore it. Nonetheless, it's clear that the criticism of Boehner's remarks has mounted to the point where it's become a real problem -- prompting him to flee into Fox's GOP safe zone to defend himself.

---

---