Xavier University Prof Put Boehner On Path To Speaker: 'John, You Ought To Think About Getting Yourself Back To School'

XU Prof Bill "Smitty" Smith

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- A conversation in a suburban Cincinnati tavern 39 years ago after a high school basketball game set John Boehner on the course that has taken him to national prominence. Xavier prof Bill Smith -- who taught accounting for 50 years -- was at the Kenwood Tavern, the kind of neighborhood bar that dots Ohio cities.  He told Boehner it was time to get a degree.  Boehner had dropped out of the University of Cincinnati with bad grades, and was scraping by driving bulldozers, working construction and refereeing high school sports.  He had $400 in his bank account.  Boehner told the story about Smith's impact on his life in the 2006 commencement speech (pdf) he delivered on Xavier's campus in Cincinnati. Here's his recollection about the professor, who was widely known as 'Smitty' and died in 2009:

"After I had been out of school for several years, Bill and I were officiating together, out in Timbuktu somewhere, and in January 1971 we were having dinner after the game at the Kenwood Tavern.  Bill Smith leaned over to me and said, 'John you ought to think about getting yourself back to school.'  He said, 'You need to come to Xavier.'"

Boehner said he couldn't afford it.  Smith paved the way with the admission office.  Boehner took three classes and finished the semester with A and Bs.  He commuted, dropped out, then spent five years in night school.  He graduated in 1977 -- six years after Smitty told him to get a college education.  Now he's about to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the highest offices in the land.  And it all started with a barroom conversation.  Bill Smith didn't make the Republican speaker, but he surely helped set him on course for the job.

House GOP Leader Boehner's Disastrous Dixie Foray: Republicans, Dems, Tea Party Ally To Denounce Alabama Meddling

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- A member of the Madison County Republican Executive Committee calls John Boehner "persona non gratia" and recommends he hunker down in a D.C. bunker. Another local GOP official says he's trampling the Alabama leadership. An uncivil welcome appears to be in store for Boehner, the man-with-the-tan from suburban Cincinnati. The Ohio Republican is headed to Huntsville, Ala., to raise money for U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith, viewed by many as a political turncoat who quit the Dems to run for reelection this year as a Republican. Locals are putting together a protest and warning the GOP's House leader to mind his own business and stay out of town. Boehner's decision to headline Griffith's Monday fundraiser has become so controversial in Alabama's 5th Congressional District that it has managed to unite area Republicans, the Tea Party, Democrats, union activists, college students, and the local chapter of Health Care For All -- bipartisanship that crosses all political lines.

The Huntsville Tea Party calls party switcher Griffith an "opportunist who cannot be trusted." It went on to describe Boehner's willingness to raise funds for the former Democrat as "Boehner is displaying the same indifference to local concerns by meddling in the Republican primary. Such behavior deserves no reward."

Republicans sound just as harsh. Hugh McInnish, a member of the county executive committee in Huntsville said: "Mr. Boehner has no business here in North Alabama, and the local Republican Committee has in effect said so. He would be better advised to bunker down within the confines of his Inside-the-Beltway-Fortress and stay there. He is persona non gratia." In neighboring Athens County, the local News Courier newspaper reported that Republican leaders are concerned Boehner is helping raise funds for only one Republican candidate:

“Recruitment of qualified Republican candidates is very difficult and John Boehner has not helped that process,” said Rex Davis, who, along with Don Hudleston, encouraged members of the Limestone County Republican Executive Committee to attend the protest. “Why would anyone want to run for office as a Republican and be trampled by the National Republican Party against the will of the local Republican leadership?” Another protestor said Boehner should not be involved in Alabama politics. “Our message to Rep. John Boehner is stay out of the Fifth District’s business. The Tea Party movement began and is continuing today because the people are being ignored. Government officials have forgotten who they work for and ‘We the People’ are tired of it and determined to take our country back,” said Deborah King, founder of the Athens-Limestone Tea Party Patriots.

House GOP Leader John Boehner: When Was He Really In The Navy?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The official entry for U.S. Rep. John Boehner in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress says he served in the United States Navy in 1968. But something doesn't seem to add up. Either the congressional bio is not quite correct, or the House Minority leader is not quite correct. He seems to recall serving in the Navy's Seabees in 1969.

This is what The Daily Bellwether knows so far:

Boehner, who represents Ohio's 8th Congressional District, enlisted in the Navy after high school and has said he was discharged within weeks because of a bad back -- either after six or eight weeks. It has always been assumed he served briefly in 1968, as the bio states. To his credit, he volunteered for military duty during the Vietnam War. Boehner was not in the crowd that tried to dodge the draft or avoid serving his country.

Last year, the Minority Leader visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast with a congressional delegation to view devastation and cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Boehner was met by the local newspaper and recalled in some detail how he was with hundreds of Seabees and "had seen this picture before.'' He described working with the Seabees assigned to clean up rubble from Hurricane Camille. A link to the story that was published on March 4, 2006 is found on this Web site for people who live in Pass Christian, a small village on the Gulf Coast. (You have to scroll down the page to a headline called Tour de Force.)

But Hurricane Camille did not strike the United States in 1968. Camille made landfall on Aug. 17, 1969. It was one of the worst storms in U.S. history and packed winds reaching nearly 200 mph. If Boehner's official bio is correct, he wasn't supposed to be in the Navy when Camille slammed into the United States.

The Daily Bellwether has the pertinent paragraphs from the Sun Herald in Mississippi that report Boehner's recollections of his duties with the Seabees after Hurricane Camille:

"Posted on Sat, Mar. 04, 2006
Tour de force
Members of Congress see Coast damage firsthand
By JOSHUA NORMAN jdnorman@sunherald.com
Congressman John Boehner has been here before. Actually, Boehner (R-Ohio), the recent successor to Tom DeLay as House Majority leader, has seen all this before, too - except it happened more than 36 years ago.
Boehner was a Seabee who arrived for a brief tour at the Gulfport Naval Construction Battalion Center in the early summer of 1969 and was there when Hurricane Camille left the Gulf Coast in ruins.
Decades later, Boehner found himself wandering through what must have seemed like the same piles of debris Friday, except this time he was here helping South Mississippi via the legislative branch of government.
"I've seen this picture before, but this is a whole lot worse," said Boehner, touring with 33 other Congress members as part of a visit arranged by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
Boehner said he was with the hundreds of Seabees after Camille who cleared roads, built schools and removed debris. He was re-deployed a few months after Camille, but the devastation seemed incredible to him then, and more incredible that it happened again.
Boehner said during a vacation several years ago, as he and his family passed through Gulfport, he told his young children about the giant ship that had landed across U.S. 90 during Camille. His kids did not believe him, until Katrina came and images of the casino barges and other ships strewn on the road made them believers.
Friday's tour of this part of the Coast, from Bay St. Louis to Keesler Air Force Base, made believers out of many in the delegation, too, some who wield real power to help."

Boehner's House Web site doesn't mention anything about his time in the Navy. No help there.

Something doesn't add up. At this point, there are questions without answers. Maybe Boehner enlisted in 1968 but didn't get to active duty until 1969. Yet it hardly seems possible he could have completed Navy Boot Camp and reached a Seabee battalion in just two months of active duty. Or maybe he did.

Perhaps some Navy veterans can offer insight.