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Theory #3: John Boehner, crazy like a fox

First we wondered whether House Speaker John Boehner is having a hard time because he's just really bad at his job. Our next hypothesis was that he sounded

First we wondered whether House Speaker John Boehner is having a hard time because he's just really bad at his job. Our next hypothesis was that he sounded nonchalant about government job losses because he's against government jobs and the people who hold them.Last night, we followed a third hypothesis: Maybe Mr. Boehner is having a hard time making progress in the House because he wants to slow the government down to the point where it can't do anything. By pledging to operate under "open rules," Mr. Boehner ended up with almost 600 amendments to the current bill that keeps the government funded. The House is crawling through them now, one by one, debate after debate. They haven't cleared even the first half of the first hundred. Rachel Maddow:

They are going to run out of time, and the government is going to run out of -- hey, wait a minute. Maybe John Boehner is crazy like a fox. Maybe the whole "we don't know how to pass anything" routine is how Republicans get to shut down the government, like so many of them have been salivating over since the elections.Maybe there's a method to this madness. It's like you didn't quite want to make insurance fraud, but you did make sure to get behind the wheel and take a really fast drive into really heavy traffic right after getting your eyes dilated. John doesn't know how to pass anything, let's put him in charge!

Too conspiratorial? Maybe. Or maybe not. Fun to think to about, anyway.