In Animal House — a classic film about an anarchic and rebellious college fraternity that closely tracks the current-day House of Representatives under Republican control — there comes a crucial moment when one of the protagonists (protagonists is used advisably here) known as Otter, offers a famous call to action: “I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!”
So it is with the “people’s house” these days, a shambolic, unstable mess whose GOP members can’t find their backsides – or a Speaker, apparently — with both hands. Unable to pass an appropriations measure by the Oct. 1 deadline – it comes around this time every year, folks – and reacting only to the whims of an orange-hued maniac ensconced in Mar-a-Lago — except when he’s making one court appearance after another – these fumbling, stumbling lawmakers are pushing democracy to the brink.
Now they have ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, from his vaunted position, which is no great loss given that the man was and is an untrustworthy boob who catered to the chamber’s crazy right wing. But he needs to be replaced before anything can get done. It requires, as Otter proposed, “a really futile and stupid gesture,” and that can be accomplished in six simple words: James Richardson Comer Jr. for Speaker.
That’s right. Tompkinsville’s (or is it Frankfort’s…whatever) own Tail-gunner Jamie is the perfect, most obvious choice to lead a collection of addle brains whose singular objective isn’t necessarily to efficiently run the government but to “own the libs.” Jamie, as chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has demonstrated a shocking ineptness during his nine months in the job, making him the only reasonable choice for Speaker.
Republicans don’t want to choose anyone who knows what he or she is doing. Hell, they wouldn’t have selected McCarthy if that were the case. They want someone who will bend to the hot impulses of the moment without considering what’s right or wrong. And that makes the old Tail-gunner the perfect candidate.
Consider this:
Plato is one of those old dudes Greece used to churn out like olives who wrote something nobody reads anymore called The Republic, which concerns itself somewhat with politics, without the pay-offs and back-scratching that makes the current system go round. Since he wrote this tome back around 375 BC, when the very idea of politics was just getting started, we’ll call him as an expert witness.
This guy Plato was supposed to be a pretty smart guy, although there’s no one remaining to provide first-hand testimony. At one point he dabbled in philosophy and issued what he characterized (rather self-congratulatory, if you ask me) The Four Cardinal Virtues — wisdom, courage, temperance and justice — which any right-thinking person should embrace.
Comer has displayed no propensity for any of these virtues. In baseball parlance, he’s carrying an ofer. He’s 0-for-four, which isn’t good enough to make him a back-up infielder on a Mets farm team but renders him the perfect option for the Speaker of the current House of Representatives.
As chair of the House Oversight Committee and now the man selected to ramrod the impeachment of President Biden based on no impeachable offenses, Jamie has shown an amazing propensity for what might be described as anti-wisdom, blowing up simple events, like Biden greeting his son Hunter’s business associates over the phone, into evidence that the president has lied and is the capo of the Biden Crime Family™. His claims have proved intemperate, he has failed to muster the courage to inform his fellow Republicans that his entire act is an obvious abomination, and you simply can’t speak of justice while he’s railroading the president on unjust claims.
Jamie possesses none of Plato’s virtues. The boy has established, during his tenure as committee chair and in his persecution of Biden that he has no conscience. AND THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF IT. House Republicans simply don’t want a Speaker with conscience. Instead of taking the oath of office when they’re sworn in, GOP House members should just paraphrase Gold Hat from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: “Conscience? We ain’t got no conscience.” Wisdom, courage, temperance and justice are not requirements for the Speaker’s job in GOP world – see McCarthy. It’s against the brand. They want a tough-talking White guy who will barrel headlong toward the goal of making Democrats irate.
It bears noting at this point that McCarthy created this mess. In his tempestuous pursuit of the speakership, which opened up when Republicans claimed a bare House majority in the November 2022 elections, he made a deal not unlike the one Robert Johnson made with the devil – he gave away the store just to possess – ever so shortly, as it turns out — the title.
It took 15 rounds of voting before he prevailed back in January and he only achieved that goal after caving to the adoption of a rule that a single member could call for a vote to vacate the chair – which Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-FL, the wingiest of wingers, did. McCarthy lost. Now GOP lawmakers are standing around with their hands in their pockets – usually they have their hands in political donors’ pockets but that’s a story for another time — wondering what to do.
Their first move, as always, is to blame Democrats. It’s a fact that every House Democrat opposed McCarthy – with good reason. The difference was in a tightly packed House, only five Republicans needed to oppose him. They got eight.
The responsibility, if that’s what it is, doesn’t fall on the Democrats. McCarthy opened the door top this possibility in his craven pursuit of the job in the first place. He agreed to the stupid rule and it has proved to be his undoing. The motion to give him a deserved heave-ho was brought by a fellow Republican.
Some on the losing side asserted the Democrats, like the calvary, should have ridden to McCarthy’s rescue, which is about the most asinine idea ever advanced in American politics – and that’s saying something.
McCarthy was a disaster and Democrats owed him, and the party he represents, nothing. The reasons would fill the Milky Way. In nine months’ time, McCarthy entered into a deal, endorsed by Democrats, to raise the debt ceiling and almost immediately he set about reneging on the agreement. He kicked two influential California Democrats, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, off the House Intelligence Committee for no particular reason. He worked with Democrats on a bill to boost U.S. semi-conductor production and then whipped his fellow Republicans to vote against it. McCarthy diddled around trying to figure out how to keep the government open after Sept. 30, finally offered a continuing resolution to keep it running that Democrats pushed over the goal line, and then accused them of trying to kill the deal, which would have resulted in a shutdown.
Oh, and leave us not forget, McCarthy initiated, without the approval of the full House as vowed, an impeachment investigation of Biden without a hint of any wrongdoing on the president’s behalf and then turned the whole kit-and-kaboodle over to our old pal, Jamie Comer, to perform the wet work.
Yet there exists in weirdo world the idea that Democrats should have done something that his fellow Republicans couldn’t – save McCarthy. There is no indication McCarthy approached House Democrats with a plan that would have saved his job. If anything, Democrats should step forward and claim credit for ridding the chamber, and the nation, of this incompetent twerp.
But now it’s time for a really futile and stupid gesture. And Tail-gunner Jamie is waiting in the wings.
Praise be. The nation is saved.