Some years ago, too many to be perfectly frank, my old pal Big Al Suderley told me he had broken up with his girlfriend, who he at all times referred to as “the beautiful Isabel.’’
When I inquired about what led to the unfortunate split, Big Al tersely replied, “She was making unreasonable demands.’’
“Yeah,’’ his brother Bill Suderley, known as Bull, intoned, “she told him to get a job.’’
That dramatic sequence was recalled this week when Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, aka Whiz Kid, made it clear that he was not enthusiastic about the prospects of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, succeeding the man he helped oust, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as speaker of the House of Representatives.
“You know, I’m not sure he wants the job,” Massie said of Ryan on CNN. “His list of demands were so bold they pass almost into the unreasonable.”
The “unreasonable’’ Ryan demands referenced by the Whiz Kid included the desire that all of his fellow House Republicans, including the 40 or so members of the Freedom Caucus, better known to one-and-all as the Crazies, play nice, get behind him, recognize the speaker’s authority to set the agenda and change the chamber’s rules that permit lawmakers to dump their leader mid-session.
Outrageous indeed.
It now looks like Massie’s reservations – he has vocally and enthusiastically endorsed Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Florida, for the job – have left him out on a long and flimsy limb. Ryan met with members of the Freedom Caucus Wednesday and, while he didn’t receive sufficient support to gain their endorsement, a sufficient number of lawmakers expressed their support to, in all likelihood, push Ryan across the finish line.
Massie’s opposition to Ryan and his misbegotten support for Webster once again displays his misguided desire to become relevant and, assuming Ryan indeed becomes the next speaker, renders him an odd man out when it comes to obtaining federal support for Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District.
But it’s fair to say the Whiz Kid appears to be right about one thing – Ryan really doesn’t want the job.
That’s because he’s not a lunatic.
Why would anyone yearn for a post that includes lawmakers like Massie constantly yipping and nipping at your heels for refusing to shut down the federal government so an organization like Planned Parenthood can be defunded? Ryan obviously is now chasing this horrible job because he feels duty-bound and there are few other viable possibilities. Regardless, Massie, as his history shows, once again finds himself on the outside looking in.
The U.S. House of Representatives has always been a chaotic place with 435 lawmakers pursuing 435 different agendas. But it functioned for the most part. Sam Rayburn, the Texas Democrat who served as speaker for 17 years in the mid-20th century, used to admonish newly-elected representatives to “get along by going along,’’ setting the nation’s agenda in a back room of the Capitol where trusted confidants rendered their judgment and the bourbon-and-branch water flowed freely.
Mister Sam’s methods were certainly too autocratic and wouldn’t work in the first half of the 21st century. But during his tenure the U.S. emerged as a world leader supreme, and his abilities showed just what a strong leader can accomplish.
Without that strong leadership Congress is facing a real crisis. Rather than let one man and his cohorts hold the keys to the kingdom, Massie wants the keys split up 435 different ways, which represents pandemonium waiting to happen. Rayburn’s methods often stifled creativity and slowed progress. Massie’s way would lead to certain disaster.
Boehner, who hopes to skedaddle by the end of the month, proved to be a weak leader, unable to face down the drones of the Freedom Caucus. He was every bit as conservative as most of those members but he had a regard for the House as an institution and felt an obligation to keep the government’s doors open and pay the nation’s bills on time.
The Crazies have no such predilection. They not only desire a shutdown over Planned Parenthood, they want to use the scheme to obliterate Obamacare and ignore the debt ceiling, which could lead to default.
In other words, Massie and the other members of the right-wing faction of the GOP caucus reject the notion that they maintain any responsibility for actually governing the country.
Massie had two opportunities to vote for Boehner as speaker. In each instance he took off on some quixotic venture, voting for backbenchers who had about as much chance of manning the dais as Bobby Jindal has of entering the front door of the White House. And he was the first co-sponsor of a resolution filed by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, aimed at ousting Boehner from his spot. Boehner’s resignation rendered that unnecessary.
Filling the speaker’s post quickly became a quagmire. The odds-on favorite, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, fell into the quicksand and finally said no thanks after determining what a headache the job would prove to be. Several nobodies stepped forward to modestly offer their services but none of them could pass muster with both the mainstream Republicans and the Crazies, which led to the courting of Ryan.
Ryan, of course, is best known as the GOP’s nominee for vice president on the failed ticket with Mitt Romney in 2012. He currently is chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and carries an undeserved reputation as a budget expert – rather like Donald Trump maintaining an expertise in coiffures. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center once characterized his bizarre budget proposals as “mystery meat,’’ giving you some idea of his true abilities.
But Ryan has emerged as the GOP’s best hope, supposedly looked upon fondly by all the various factions. Despite his terrible budget ideas – transforming Medicare into a voucher program, cutting billions from discretionary spending with an adverse effect on areas like education and medical research, lowering the income tax rate on the wealthiest the nation has to offer – Ryan was prevailed upon to fill the void.
He was, as famously said in Argo, the “best bad idea.’’ Ryan agreed to serve in the post reluctantly and likely will encounter any number of obstacles dealing with Massie and other members of the Freedom Caucus. After all, he worked with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, on a spending plan in 2013 that failed to smother Obamacare and he supports immigration reform that could provide a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented workers already within the nation’s boundaries.
Still, for the time being, Ryan finds himself in a position of power. There’s no one to turn to. Before Ryan’s name came up there was serious talk – believe it or don’t – about dusting off the carcass of Newt Gingrich, who resigned from the post in disgrace 16 years ago, and propping him up in the chair as a temporary solution.
And the time has come to declare the Whiz Kid an abysmal failure. He is a professional bomb-thrower, unwilling to work with Democrats or Republicans on resolving the nation’s growing list of ills. He comes from a faction that represents less than 10 percent of the thinking in the lower chamber but he’s determined to put a stake through the heart of any proposal to keep the joint humming.
He’s a troublemaker, not a problem solver. And he is a duly-elected member of the House of Representatives. He is living proof of the old Mark Twain line, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.
Excellent article. The interesting thing is the House could choose anyone to fill the Speaker seat — there’s nothing in the Constitution about having to be an actual elected Representative. I’ve heard rumors of Dick Cheney getting the nod, heaven forbid!
I just love your insight … and your humor! I never miss your column.
I can certainly proclaim, “Don’t blame me – I voted for Adkins.” Massie has lived up – or down in actuality – to my expectations. No accomplishments, ineffective, an inability to comprehend or discuss those issues requiring action, an ideologue with, at best, a simplistic comprehension of both the Constitution and American history all are cumulative in performance. Massie is Kentucky’s version of Louis Gohmert. The best that can be said about him is to lament that Vanceburg is missing its village idiot and he can be found huddling with the Freedumb Caucus.
Funny, though, is that Massie would take credit for ridding Congress of the establishment’s Boehner and then Congress gets the establishment’s Ryan who would be more powerful when his demands are met. No matter. Because of Massie and those like him in the Freedumb Caucus, the US House will remain Dysfunctional.
Well then according to your last line you must be quite successful. God bless Thomas Massie. God Bless the trouble makers!
Everyone is a critic. God Bless you Thomas Massie. The devil is just trying to discourage you by articles like this one. Keep your head up!!