This is interesting in that Boehner was an arch conservative Republican speaker of the house and an arch-enemy of the Democrats. Yet here he is explicitly blaming the conservative media for shifting the ground under American conservative politics and elevating a bunch of screwballs to a level of importance they'd never have previously reached.
"Besides the homegrown 'talent' at Fox, with their choice of guests they were making people who used to be fringe characters into powerful media stars. One of the first prototypes out of their laboratory was a woman named Michele Bachmann," Boehner wrote in an essay using excerpts from his upcoming book published Friday in Politico Magazine. "Bachmann, who had represented Minnesota's 6th Congressional District since 2007 and made a name for herself as a lunatic ever since, came to meet with me in the busy period in late 2010 after the election."
Bachmann, a conservative firebrand who came to Congress during the rise of the Tea Party, wanted a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Boehner wrote.
"There was no way she was going to get on Ways and Means, the most prestigious committee in Congress, and jump ahead of everyone else in line," he said. "Not while I was Speaker. In earlier days, a member of Congress in her position wouldn’t even have dared ask for something like this. Sam Rayburn would have laughed her out of the city."
Bachmann threatened Boehner, he said, telling him if he didn't give her what she wanted, she would unleash the forces of conservative media on him.
“Well, then I’ll just have to go talk to Sean Hannity and everybody at Fox ... and Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and everybody else on the radio, and tell them that this is how John Boehner is treating the people who made it possible for the Republicans to take back the House," Bachmann told Boehner.
"I wasn’t the one with the power, she was saying. I just thought I was. She had the power now," he wrote. "She was right, of course."
Boehner on Bachmann: Right-wing media made 'people who used to be fringe characters into powerful media stars' | TheHill
Boehner also discussed longtime Fox News chief Roger Ailes and Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch in the essay, saying Ailes got "swept up" in conspiracies about former President Obama and Murdoch "cared about ratings and the bottom line."
"When I was first elected to Congress, we didn’t have any propaganda organization for conservatives, except maybe a magazine or two like National Review," Boehner said. "The only people who used the internet were some geeks in Palo Alto. There was no Drudge Report. No Breitbart. No kooks on YouTube spreading dangerous nonsense like they did every day about Obama."
"And of course the truly nutty business about his birth certificate," Boehner writes talking about the birther conspiracy theories spread about Obama.
"People really had been brainwashed into believing Barack Obama was some Manchurian candidate planning to betray America.
Mark Levin was the first to go on the radio and spout off this crazy nonsense. It got him ratings, so eventually he dragged Hannity and Rush [Limbaugh] to Looneyville along with him."
Boehner says he called Hannity 'a nut' during tense 2015 phone call | TheHill