Though the Democratic side of the aisle was relatively empty, Republicans showed up in force on Thursday to hear newly sworn-in Speaker John Boehner read a great American document aloud.
“Would you eat them in a box?” Boehner queried his fellow Representatives. “Would you eat them with a fox?”
The reading, which took approximately 90 minutes — not including several short restroom breaks and an appeal for Vice President Biden to stop reciting along from memory — was meant as both a nod to the newly elected Tea Party members who love ham, and as a rebuke to those Democrats who do not.
Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, told Fox News that he whole-heartedly supported the reading.
“I love ham. Ham is as American as … ham, actually. And I love America, so it naturally follows that we should spend our time in session reading a text that most of us know very well already. Because it’s about ham. And ham is good.”
At one point during the reading, Boehner became emotional and had to take a few moments to collect himself. In an interview that evening, Boehner said, “That book gets me every time. Right in the heartstrings. I just start thinking, ‘Wow. Dr. Seuss spent all that time on this perfect text, and now it’s up to us to carry on his vision of low taxes and a repealed Obamacare.’ And yes, sometimes I tear up a bit. I’ve never been a man to hide my emotions, you know.”
Nancy Pelosi, minority leader in the House of Representatives, was noticeably irked by the reading.
“I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them in Congress, I do not like them when they have any association with the Republican Party, I do not like them when it means I don’t get to be Speaker anymore.”
At the end of the session, Boehner reverently placed the book at the front of the chamber; a reminder, he said, that “we must work together to make this nation a better place. We must do it as commanded in the Constitution. And we must do it in a boat; we must do it with a goat. Amen.”
