Boehner gets half a cheer

John Boehner is clearly an improvement over Tom "The Hammer" DeLay as majority leader of the U.S. House, but there' reason to believe Boehner isn't about to drive the final nail into the coffin of special-interests abuses in Washington, D.C.
What Boehner will do is bottle up the special earmarks -- pork -- that have proliferated under DeLay and divert billions of dollars from the general welfare to those districts lucky enough to have a congressman in a leadership position.
As a recent column by George Will noted, even in exile in Texas, DeLay continued to be proud of his earmarks -- telling Will that the highway he used to get to DeLay's house was itself an earmark.
Boehner has never approve of funding pet projects by legislative earmarks, and came under some criticism at his home district near Cincinnati for not delivering the pork.
He has other tastes
But while his disdain for pork has been well documented, Boehner has a demonstrated appetite for campaign funds that are doled out by lobbyists and, as an avid golfer, has enjoyed more than his share of perks that were paid for by outside interests.
Boehner arrived in Washington as minority party reformer and joined hands with Newt Gingrich when Gingrich took over as House speaker. But in 1995 Boehner was criticized for handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor while lawmakers were weighing tobacco subsidies. In 2004, he allowed Sallie Mae, the student loan financier, to throw him a fund-raiser while his committee was considering legislation that affected Sallie Mae.
And clearly Boehner golfs and travels beyond his means. How many people manage on a salary of about $150,000 a year to take more than three dozen trips in five years to overseas destinations, including Rome, Venice, Paris and Edinburgh, and to domestic resort spots such as Boca Raton, Fla., and Pebble Beach, Calif., the latter known for its championship golf?
Boehner manages the old fashioned way: it isn't his money, The trips are privately financed by folks who are happy to cater to a congressman's wishes.
It's nice to have an Ohioan as majority leader. But with his history, Boehner can't be assumed to be the reformer Congress needs. He'll have to prove himself.