The tanned, sincere, crocodile

Boehner's tears aren't hard to read. After analyzing hundreds of psychological experiments and sociological studies of weeping, hundreds of accounts of crying in different cultures and different historical periods, thousands of tearful moments in film and fiction and art, I have come to see that, like the mother of the bride, many of us weep because we are overwhelmed by contradictions...

On "60 Minutes," Boehner told Stahl that he couldn't visit schools anymore; that he got too upset, worrying about whether today's schoolchildren will have the same opportunities that he and his generation had. As he spoke, he started to weep. Why?

He does, I believe, worry about the children, and yet his entire political philosophy is devoted to limiting the federal government's ability to help them. He has voted against providing health insurance for children (many times), against student aid, against unemployment benefits, against equal pay, against food safety, against money for teachers, against raising the minimum wage, against tobacco education, mine safety, alternative energy, pollution control, whistle-blower protection, science and technology research. If he were making his decisions based on what government programs might help today's schoolchildren reach their dreams, like the Kennedy- and Johnson-era programs that helped him, his voting record would be very different. It is a deep enough contradiction to make him weep for the future.