House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has recently called on President Obama to fire Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers. Now I don’t know how Boehner’s mother raised him, but where I come from, that behavior would be considered downright rude. Where is the gratitude? I think John of Orange owes them an apology. Trying to get the two individuals whose actions played a major role in assuring that Boehner will be promoted (to the position of Speaker of the House after Republicans win big this November) fired is just bad manners in my book. If it weren’t for Summers’ terrible economic projections and horrible advice, combined with Geithner’s equally bad counsel, consistently putting the prosperity of Wall Street over main street while horribly mismanaging the HAMP program, Boehner would not be close to measuring the drapes for the Speaker’s office..

If President Obama had listened to, say, an individual like outgoing chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer–who correctly understood the scale of the economic downturn–instead of the overly-optimistic-to-the-point-of-being-totally-wrong projections of Larry Summers, then the President might have opted for more stimulus, a true focus on jobs creation, and maybe even real solutions to the terrible-and-getting-worse mortgage foreclosure crisis. Obama might have taken seriously the mission of getting the unemployed back to work instead of foolishly wasting half a year trying to get Mike Enzi to vote for health care. The result could have been lower unemployment numbers and a much higher political prospects for Democrats this election cycle. Underestimating the scale of the economic crisis was the huge original failure of the Obama administration, one which created a domino effect of bad choices.

So, now, there are a whole lot of people who have every right to demand the heads of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. The unemployed, those actually made worse off by HAMP, community banks, every American hurt by the continued economic downturn, elected Democrats who are going to be crushed in November. . . it is sadly quite a long list. But you Mr. Boehner, as one of lucky few Americans (along with the top Wall Street executives and the rest of the Republican party leadership) whose job prospects economic standing will likely improve because of White House decisions, your calling for Tim’s and Larry’s resignation is just being ungrateful. After all they have done for you, not-yet-Speaker Boehner, I think you owe them an apology.