JOKE OF THE WEEK

DATELINE: Comedyville, August 2 –  The world is brimful of steaming struggles this week: Israel vs. Hamas, Ukraine vs. Russia, Iraq vs. ISIS, Rebels vs. Syria, Sanity vs. North Korea. Most of them are very sobering with long-term consequences that can reshape our lives for the much worse.

The U.S. Government’s reaction is its usual non-response of ineffective sanctions in some cases and endless, unproductive talking in others. That failure may be turn out to be the joke of American history but it’s not the joke of the week.

The joke of the week honor belongs to John Boehner and his House of Representatives. The country is plagued with a serious, if not catastrophic, crisis on its southern border. Regardless which side of the controversy people take, everyone agrees that a solution is urgently needed.

Rather than offering a resolution of the crisis that has a snowball’s chance of becoming a bipartisan departure point, Boehner took a timeout. It was more important to him to get House approval for his unpopular lawsuit against our Chief Executive. Good for him. He got that done.

Certainly, Obama is a feckless occupant of the Oval Office with an abiding, and entirely predictable, refusal to work with others. But, Boehner has turned out to be less than worthless as well.

As if to magnify his ineptitude, Boehner did manage to get two measures passed by the House that attempt to deal with the border calamity. But, they came only after the Senate had left town for the current five-week congressional recess.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker, for your untimely response to the most urgent domestic issue of the day. Please don’t let anyone suspect that the timing was a deliberate political expedient. We don’t want to be treated to the embarrassment of claims that you did, too, provide a border crisis solution.

Nobody may want to hear it, but the rest of us are fed up.