A reader comments on the Internet’s “hypocracy” problem:

Take a chill pill bro. Your thing about the hypocrisy/hypocracy misspelling forgets that orthography didn’t exist until about a century ago in this country; look at how the Founding documents were variously spelled as well as the progressive changes in “correct” spelling over the decades (e.g. the loss of hyphens and diareses in words, like reeducate and coordinate instead of re-educate and coördinate or co-ordinate).

Wel isn’t that nais? An added problem with “hypocracy” is that it confuses the roots of two very different words. Krisis and kratos are not to be confused with one another, unless you believe that might makes right or that those with power are necesssarily just.

The reader throws in a complaint about Boehner:

If only he were replaced by someone good like John Shadegg or Eric Cantor, or my own Mark Souder, and have him do something by which we’d profit, like going home and staying there.

Sed contra, I’d argue that Boehner hasn’t done a bad job. On this question — earmarks — he has the unenviable task of herding a mostly unwilling 195-member caucus (plus or minus a few, depending on special elections). Perhaps he is blameworthy for failing to let Flake loose on the appropriations committee, but he cannot be blamed for the fact that most House Republicans are so fond of using the U.S. Treasury as their district’s economic development slush fund. Boehner at least sets a good example on the issue and has done so consistently for years.

I suppose Boehner might perform better if we change the spelling of his name from “John Boehner” to “Ronald Reagan,” but I remain a stickler for modern orthography.