OP-ED: The sad saga of Kevin McCarthy
Last Monday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar of California placed the name of Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York in nomination for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Aguilar made the simple statement, “Today, madam clerk, Democrats are united.”
That was met with applause.
Ironic applause.
Democrats had been voted into the minority last November. Yet, they appeared to be having fun when the balloting for speaker began. Why? Their Republican counterparts were in complete disarray with their newfound majority.
There were widespread Republican-on-Republican hissy fits over who would become the new Republican speaker of the House. Democrats appeared to be content, having Republicans unable to find somebody to emerge as their leader. The overwhelming number of Republicans had planned to vote for their majority leader, Kevin McCarthy. But there still wasn’t enough votes — 218 — to place McCarthy in the speaker’s seat.
There’s been no doubt, for a long time, that McCarthy wanted the job. Heck, he’d been in line to take over the speakership back in September 2015. But a juicy, unforced verbal error took him out of the running. Back then, Republicans were in the majority in the House, and they conducted hearings into Hillary Clinton’s supposed role in the deaths of four Americans at Benghazi, Libya. Unfortunately, McCarthy let slip the real reason he thought those hearings were held.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable,” McCarthy said on Fox News.
He’d committed what’s known as a classic “Kinsley gaffe.” Named after the columnist Michael Kinsley, a “Kinsley gaffe” occurs when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Those Benghazi hearings weren’t really about finding facts. They were used to sully Clinton’s image. A few days after he made that statement, McCarthy dropped out of the race to be speaker, despite being the front-runner to replace John Boehner, the outgoing speaker. McCarthy has coveted the speakership ever since.
Automaker Lee Iacocca once appeared in Chrysler TV commercials saying, “In the automobile industry, you either lead, follow, or get out of the way!” Republicans aren’t doing any of those things.
That’s why a few renegade, flamethrowing, far-right Republicans, like Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) were some of the louder voices helping to derail the first votes for speaker. That’s why more moderate Republicans like Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) weren’t pleased with them. “Unbelievably petty! This is about showmanship. This is about notoriety. It has nothing to do with the conservative agenda,” Crenshaw said on Fox News.
Well, what isn’t about showmanship for Republicans these days?
Get a Republican to talk about policies, and they’ll spend their time accusing Democrats of having “a radical, far-left socialist agenda.” Then they’ll throw in the word “woke” as an added insult.
Nobody uses that word anymore, except Republicans. None of it has anything to do with policy. Being against everything, especially if Democrats are for it, isn’t policy.
Despite prematurely moving into the speaker’s office, McCarthy lost 13 votes as of Friday afternoon.
Ironically, he’d been one of the ballyhooed “Young Guns,” a dozen years ago. McCarthy, Paul Ryan, and Eric Cantor were thought to have been the faces of the sparkling new breed of Republicans. Ryan left a few years ago. And Cantor left Congress in 2014. McCarthy is the last of the “Young Guns.” He’s not looking so “young” these days.
No wonder, as the balloting proceeded, Democrats appeared to be relaxed, attentive, and oh-so-willing to watch Republicans stumble over their own awkward intentions.
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel appeared on Fox News, and she said the whole mess is making the Republican Party look bad. I’d slightly disagree. There are a lot of things that make the Republican Party look bad. Not being able to hand a Republican the speaker’s gavel is just one of them.
In the end, a Republican will be handed that gavel. But Republicans will still look bad.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.