House Speaker John Boehner Says He Needs Job 'Like I Need a Hole in the Head' - House of Representatives Daily Update

House Speaker John Boehner is staring down the barrel of another two-year stint trying to rally and rein in his unruly caucus, and he's not looking forward to it.

"I need this job like I need a hole in the head," lamented Boehner, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore published on Monday.

Perhaps Boehner is rethinking his decision to head House Republicans again, after being vilified by legislators on both sides of the aisle for his half-hearted compromise with President Obama over the fiscal cliff and a narrow reelection victory for the speaker position that saw many of his colleagues abstain from voting until it became clear he would win anyway.

Boehner has been frustrated for weeks at his inability to wring concessions from Obama and the Democrats and the intransigence of his own party members in both the House and Senate.

In the days after Christmas, Boehner -- not normally known for keeping his emotions in check -- lost his cool and swore at Senate majority leader Harry Reid during fiscal cliff negotiations.

During a tense exchange with Reid, Boehner punctuated his argument with a, "Go f**k yourself."

"Those days after Christmas, I was in Ohio, and Harry's on the Senate floor calling me a dictator and all kinds of nasty things," Boehner explained. "You know, I don't lose my temper. I never do. But I was shocked at what Harry was saying about me. I came back to town. Saw Harry at the White House. And that was when that was said."

Now that the immediate danger of the fiscal cliff is resolved and sequestration has been pushed off for two months, Boehner is regrouping.

He thinks Republicans have a better hand in the coming sequestration and debt ceiling debates than it seems at first.

While most analysts say Republicans are more worried about sequestration -- which calls for steep, indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts in defense spending and social programs, but leaves Social Security and Medicare untouched -- Boehner believes Democrats will cave in first, noting that it was Democrats who first suggested a deal to avert sequestration during the fiscal cliff negotiations.

"It wasn't until literally last week that the White House brought up replacing the sequester," Boehner said. "They said, 'We can't have the sequester.' They were always counting on us to bring this to the table."

"I got that in my back pocket," added Boehner.

And that gives him some solace.