When Speaker of the House John Boehner announced his resignation this morning, he surrendered one of the highest political offices in the land -- a perch at the top of the House of Representatives, behind only the vice president in the line of presidential succession.
But before he began his long climb to the top of the Republican ranks, Boehner first had to teach everyone how to pronounce his last name.
In an August 1990 letter from Boehner to White House Chief of Staff John Sununu printed on Boehner's official letterhead, "John Boehner* U.S. Congress" is written at the top.
Why the asterisk? Running diagonally across the top-left corner is a set of instructions: "*Say Bay-ner."
Written in the final months before Boehner's election to Congress, the letter implores Sununu to come to Ohio to stump with the then-candidate.
"I am writing to ask for your assistance in fighting an uphill battle," Boehner begins. "The state and local Democrat organizations see their first opportunity in a number of years to claim the 8th District seat and are going all out to provide my opponent with support. Additionally, my opponent has a very well known and well liked relative who happens to be a popular television actor on the NBC series 'Cheers'."
Boehner would win that race, but getting people to stop pronouncing his last name as "boner" would prove to be an uphill battle:
