While the cable news channels decided that nothing else was going on other than the death of Michael Jackson, John Boehner was on the floor of the House doing his best job to pretend he is in the Senate filibustering a piece of legislation. He was supposed to be using his two and a half minutes alloted to him to wrap up debate on the energy bill and carried on for well over an hour instead.

The entire fiasco looked like nothing less than cheap showmanship and games to me, with Michelle Bachmann for the better part of the hour in the background with the rest of the Republican peanut gallery yelling "Yeah!!! You go John!!!...Keep going!!!" every chance she got.

The party of "No" isn't too good at governing when given the opportunity, but they sure are good at theatrics.

You can watch the entire thing at CSPANJunkie's new site: Minority Leader John Boehner On The Clean Energy & Climate Change Bill. I've just got the last few minutes of his freedom lovin' diatribe here.

The bill passed, barely, but all this exercise appeared to be to me was Boehner seeing if he could talk long enough to make a few members of the House get tired of listening to him and leave. Games. Political theater, pure and simple. No one likes this bill on either side and it appears the sausage makers have mucked it up enough that is not a good bill. Boehner didn't need an hour long rant to get that point across.

David Waldman's got a summary of the bill at Congress Matters:

American Clean Energy and Security Act.

He makes a good point that goes to the hypocrisy of Boehner's theatrics yesterday as well. Will the Republicans actually read their substitute bill they're likely to offer? Here's a "Read the Bill" question for you...