For years, Kevin McCarthy wanted to be speaker of the House in the worst possible way, and that’s precisely what he accomplished by winning the leadership post after 15 humiliating rounds of voting and days of give-away-the-store negotiations.
He ceded so much to foes — effective veto power over must-pass legislation, greater say over committee assignments, allowing a sole dissident to trigger a vote on his ouster — that McCarthy will spend his shaky tenure, as long as it lasts, balanced on a razor’s edge. One nick and he’s gone.
Far more troubling, McCarthy’s cowardly concessions leave the country hostage for the next two years to an extreme fringe of far-right zealots, who threaten to turn the normal operation of government and such typically routine business — like raising the debt ceiling to avoid default and economic catastrophe — into a cliffhanging drama.
There are marshmallows made of sterner stuff. McCarthy has proven a man unworthy of trust, his spine bendable, his values pliable, his beliefs open to barter.
McCarthy helped bring a fire-spitting breed of anti-government, anti-establishment radicals into the GOP tent, and then almost lost his end of the bargain when they turned against him. In the end, a willingness to neuter himself was the price McCarthy was forced, and proved sadly willing, to pay.
McCarthy cashed out his integrity a long time ago. Sadly, the country will now have to pay the price.
R&I-Rawr
Captain