By Roger Kimball
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” That seems to be Kevin McCarthy’s favorite mantra. Friday night, on the 15th vote for speaker of the House, he finally got his moist little palm around Nancy Pelosi’s still-warm gavel. Welcome to the new Republican-ish speaker of the House!
The contest was brutal, occasionally absurd, and the occasion of hilarity and consternation among the punditocracy on both the Right and the Left. The Left clucked their tongues about the “chaos” on view on the other side of the aisle. Some among the GOP agreed and wondered why “their side” could not govern as effectively as the Democrats. Would Nancy Pelosi have put up with this level of dissension among the Democratic rank and file? Others said, no, no, the 20 freedom caucus members (and others) holding up the inevitable were just giving the world a reality show, live-action look at how “democracy” (if not quite Our Democracy™) works and should work.
I am of two minds about that. My own take is that McCarthy is an unreliable ally for those on the Right. He was only too happy to shovel billions of your and your children’s money to Ukraine while doing little to secure our southern border. McCarthy is from California, so, naturally, he likes to spend money. He even got behind such improvident and mendacious schemes as raiding Medicare to pay for the U.S. Postal Service. He was happy to fund the January 6 kangaroo court, grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, and support mandates for the useless—indeed, dangerous—COVID vaccine for the military. In plain terms, his voting record is only intermittently conservative.
Kevin McCarthy, in short, is a swamp creature masquerading as a swamp critic. The Swamp loves its own, and so it was no surprise that McCarthy eventually prevailed, just barely. He did so at considerable cost to the power of the speaker’s office but also considerable benefit to people who care about accountability.
McCarthy had to make many concessions to his vociferous opponents in order to entice enough of them to his side (or in the case of a couple, to absent themselves from the House so that McCarthy could win with fewer than 218 votes). Henceforth, a single Congressman can move to remove the speaker. A new committee modeled after the “Church Committee” will be empaneled to investigate abuse by the FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence services. More generally, three members of the Freedom Caucus are guaranteed seats on the nine member and all important Rules Committee. That’s not a majority, but it is an agenda-influencing percentage.
There were other important concessions, though how and indeed whether they will happen is not clear. I am keen on term limits, and so were the holdouts. They got McCarthy to agree to put the matter to a vote, though I don’t know anyone who believes that this popular idea (popular with those not holding office, that is) has a ghost of a chance of passing.
More promising is the agreement to end the profligate and insulting practice of passing huge “omnibus” spending packages at the last possible moment so that, as Nancy Pelosi said about a previous assault on fiscal sanity, you “have to pass it to know what is in it.” Henceforth, or so it was agreed, members of Congress will get at least 72 hours to read bills before they are required to vote on them. That is bad for earmarks, good for accountability.
The bottom line is that McCarthy’s prerogatives as speaker have been curtailed, which is a good thing. Also, he has made public promises on important matters that it will be difficult to walk away from without cost. At the same time, I get the distinct feeling that not a lot is going to change.
Damn I hate that this WEF swamp creature has the same name as Patriotic anti commie Joe.
I pray this new majority can stop the digital currency and digital ID system they have planned.
Maybe stop the MRNA contamination of our food supply, jab a cow, genetically FU a vegetable.
I predict it will be Democrats to be the first to violate the “one vote” rule to try and get McCarthy removed. We can see why it was so important for Democrats (and their rino allies) to get that $1.7 trillion obscene embarrassment passed before the new year.
Exhuming McCarthy: How minority rule could implode U.S. democracy in 2023
Washington no longer serves the will of the people, that is not even an illusion anymore.
Kevin is a WEF member he would serve the will of the corporations that make up these unelected slime balls. The DC crowd’s wealth swells as our investments and savings vanish.
Your fantasy of what happened and is happening is sweet, but not reality.
Trust NASA?
How long did it take to get their latest rocket off the launch pad, those delays and false starts aint free. Maybe the rocket scientists shouldnt have been fired so Barrys census would have people. Barry sure found pallets of cash and gold for his Iran deal, without the permission of congress.
As Biden made his visit near the border they cleaned all the encamped invaders off the streets and Mexico put special forces on the border, nice photo op illusion. Dont fret they will release all the illegals back to the streets now that the Resident has made the issue of no border visit go away.
Dude we are trying hard to clean our house, while you people have weaponized the government to violate the constitution.
The only “progress” made over the past two years has been the left’s progress in destroying this country. Everything the Democrats have done and desire to do needs to be stymied. McCarthy ceded power to THE PEOPLE. He isn’t a demagogic dictator like that sloppy, slurring, insider-trading, corrupt liar Pelosi. 99% of the Republicans are in unison with what they want to accomplish.
Pelosi tried to turn the House into single party rule. She broke every rule and regulation that got in the way of totalitarianism. The January 6 farce was the pinnacle of her abuse, but since she was mostly responsible for the riot, she HAD to manipulate the committee into nothing but a partisan kangaroo court.
What we will see from McCarthy and the House now will be Constitutional process, not a dictatorship. Yeah, it will be different. Let’s hope their investigations of leftist corruption yields further changes that protects our Constitution. Not that you care about that.