And when John Boehner took the podium to be sworn in as Speaker of the House of Representatives, it swelled back up, and stayed there. Hard work and tough decisions will be required of the 112th Congress. The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions. No one Republican member of Congress wants to be the first to stop applauding the new speaker. “It’s still just me," he said with a smile. He spent a lot of time on the "scar tissue" that has built up under "some of the rituals that have come to characterize this institution under majorities Republican and Democratic alike." The rules Boehner is pushing through the House make it vastly easier to increase the deficit through tax cuts, an outcome that won't sit well with Boehner's repeated pledge to hold down the debt. And Boehner himself has not always been able to "disagree without being disagreeable."
– Incoming House speakers have a long tradition of overreaching in their opening speeches, writes Ezra Klein at the Washington Post. John Boehner took the opposite approach today with his themes of "humility and comity," and that's why Klein loved it. Boehner didn't gloat on behalf of himself or his party, and he didn't set himself up as the savior of conservatives or the "foil" to the White House. He even pledged to try to heal the "scar tissue" between the parties with more openness. "It was, I think, as smart a speech as I've seen a politician give—in part because it was savvy about what it didn't say, which is a rare virtue in Washington," writes Klein. Time will tell whether he can follow through, "but thus far, Boehner's political instincts have been quite impressive. The White House may have a more able opponent in him than they thought." Click here to read the full text of Boehner's speech.