Does House Speaker John Boehner have the authority to lower the flag to half-staff?

It bothers me that such a question would even need to be addressed by a media outlet. I'm genuinely curious to know if this was written and published in response to a question, or if the decision to write it was based on other circumstances. If it's the former, then who asked? If it's the latter, I'd love to hear their reasoning. The question that pounded through my head while reading it was, "who gives a flying fuck?" Unless congressman Boehner ordered the flag lowered and then pissed on it, what difference does it make? Every citizen of the United States has the authority to raise the flag or fly it at half mast when it's appropriate to do so, so why would they even need to bother explaining it? Nevermind the fact that the press release the article links to doesn't even quote Boehner's order, it simply makes a note of it. How do they know he didn't say, "in accordance with President Obama's proclamation..." before he ordered the flag lowered?

Please, someone justify this article for me, because as far as I'm concerned, this is political maneuvering at its despicable best.

While I agree the timing was rather distasteful, I'll play devil's advocate.

The Explainer is Slate's general interest articles that attempt to answer questions, either asked or inferred, that are researched and politically sterile. Let me emphasize, there was no politics involved. The article simply details the law and etiquette involved with flying flags at half-mast while briefly mentioning the current event that brought about this question. No judgements or inference were apparent.

Still distasteful. Did I just explain the explainer? So meta...

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