Can Boehner Control the New Tea Party Congress?

The dapper, golf-loving, wine-swilling Minority Leader John Boehner was one of the first Republican leaders to understand that his party needed to harness the power of the Tea Party, the New Yorker's Peter Boyer explains. Only a couple hundred people were expected to show up at an anti-tax rally in Bakersfield, California, last year, but Boehner watched as thousands of angry Americans showed. "Back in Washington, Boehner reported what he’d seen to his Republican colleagues. While many Democrats and the mainstream media mocked the Tea Party, Boehner pressed his members to get out in front of the movement or, at least, get out of its way." Now Boehner has to lead the Tea Party Congress that he helped create. The governing part is going to be trickier. "This is going to be probably the first really big adult moment" for the House Republicans, Boehner told Boyer...more