I like John Boehner, but he’s making it hard to be a RINO squish apologist elitist . . . whatever.

Boehner complained yesterday about being characterized as an “establishment” man, and went on to declare himself “the most anti-establishment speaker” in history.

What could that possibly hope to mean?

This is part of a weird Republican trend. A while back, I was at one of those elitist dinner parties the talk-radio guys are always going on and on about (Upper East Side, not Georgetown), and one of the assembled declared that “the establishment” hated him, was terrified of him, could not abide his anti-establishment ways, etc. He was a state Republican party chairman, from a very large state. Ben Shapiro, who’ll forgive me for picking on him, tells a tale of Ted Cruz vs. the establishment. Sarah Palin, bless her, has been known to rail against the “establishment.”

Which leads me to wonder: Who, exactly, is this GOP establishment? If the establishment excludes the speaker of the House, party chairmen, prominent senators, governors, former vice-presidential nominees — who the hell is in the establishment?

So far as I can tell, nobody will confess to being part of the Republican establishment. If there really is a vacancy, I nominate Patrick Brennan, if he has some spare time.