John Boehner's Dirty High School Nickname Revealed

Lost in the legitimate substance of Monday's New Yorker profile on House Minority Leader John Boehner is a humorous and telling -- if not immature -- historical tidbit about the pain of living through adolescence with a last name that is separated from a crude version of the male reproductive sex organ by only a few letters.

Peter J. Boyer wrote of Boehner's football-playing days at Moeller High School in Cincinnati, Ohio:

Moeller was a football powerhouse, coached by the future Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust, and Boehner became a reliable, if unspectacular, two-position regular as a linebacker and a center, earning Faust's respect for playing with pain after suffering a back injury. (Boehner's high-school nickname was, inevitably, Boner.)

At least his parents went with John and not Richard.

Now we feel guilty, but as the Speaker of the House-in-waiting might be thinking, look who's laughing now.