Boehner On Dealing With Conservatives: ‘Garbage Men Get Used to the Smell of Bad Garbage’

House Speaker John Boehner is under fire from Conservatives. While on a fund raising trip, he told a Politico reporter that dealing with them is part of his job. 

“Garbage men get used to the smell of bad garbage. Prisoners learn how to become prisoners, all right?” Boehner said in a phone interview this weekend from Seattle during a fundraising trip to the Pacific Northwest, referring especially to the grind of constant travel. “You can teach yourself to do anything, especially if you’re committed to a cause. I came to Washington to fight for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government.”

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Some conservatives have complained that he doles out punishment to conservatives who cross him; Boehner said that’s not his style.

“I don’t believe in rewarding bad behavior,” he said. “That’s a much better way of saying it.”

The rap that his leadership style is autocratic is also off the mark, he said.

“People who think I’m a dictator or acting like a dictator have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about because I never make a decision on my own,” Boehner said.

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