(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Is there a weaker man than Kevin McCarthy? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-08 A man and his master (Photo: Reuters) McCarthy’s dream was the Speaker’s gavel. He got it. Now he could lose it — without a single recorded accomplishment in the job. By any measure, becoming the House Leader and second-in-line to the presidency should be judged as the high point of a glittering and successful career. Yet McCarthy’s ascension has only illuminated to many what his intimates have known for years — Kevin is a beta male. Harry Truman set the tone for leadership in Washington with his famous plaque, “The buck stops here.” McCarthy’s plaque reads, “The buck stops elsewhere.” It is no surprise. Conservatives dream they are tough-minded, rugged individualists. Awake, they are churlish fingers-pointers. Led by the uber-whiner, the Mar-a-Lago moaner, the GOP is well-stocked with blame-shifters. Kevin plays the victim as well as any of them. It is evident to everyone except MT Greene and her fellow confabulists that the Republican majority in the House has promised big and delivered little. Now McCarthy is reaping the sorry reward of being the captain of a floundering ship. And rather than bearing the burden of leadership, he is trying to swat the responsibility of his position away. The flashpoint is the incoherent Republican strategy over the debt ceiling crisis. We have been here before. The GOP commits to the expense, but when the bill comes due during a Democratic administration, those profligates discover financial rectitude. They demand the poorest and oldest Americans take it on the chin so that the tax cuts to the wealthy do not sink America’s fiscal ship. Voters do not buy the deceit. They can spot the con. And once again, Republicans have to scramble to save face. McCarthy has to find his scapegoats. He has turned on his number two, Steve Scalise, and denigrated his Budget Committee Chair, Jodey C. Arrington. Publicly he called Mr. Scalise “an essential partner of the entire leadership team” and “integral” to the party’s success. And he said that Mr. Arrington’s “work on the budget will only make our conference stronger as we strive to halt reckless government spending and get America back on a sound budgetary track.” But behind the scenes, the NY Times r eports , McCarthy is backstabbing. “Privately, Mr. McCarthy has laid the problems at Mr. Arrington’s feet, mocking his television interviews as unhelpful and venting that he floated dates for rolling out a budget long before Republicans had agreed on the substance of what would be in it.” And: “Mr. McCarthy has told colleagues and allies that he cannot rely on Mr. Scalise, describing the majority leader as ineffective, checked out and reluctant to take a position on anything.” What a worm. But we should not be surprised. (Note: The description of Scalise could be that of Mark Meadows in the White House during the Capitol attack) It is unlikely that anyone kissed more ass than McCarthy to become Speaker. Consider his volte-face on the Jan 6 riot. In a conference call with GOP House leadership two days after the attempted insurrection, the invertebrate told his audience , “Yeah, what the President did was atrocious and totally wrong.” He continued by saying the GOP should focus on the future, not the past. He wished Trump would meet with Biden while acknowledging that was not about to happen. He expressed a desire to talk with the incoming President. And he said he hoped to “make a smooth transition [to the next administration]” By the end of January, he had changed his tune. On the 28th, he visited Trump at his Florida retirement home, proving he had the same commitment to his principles as a meth addict. When a photo of his pilgrimage surfaced, McCarthy compounded his vacillation. He told a colleague , "I didn't know they were going to take a picture." The man is not intelligent. How could he think he could get in and out of Mar a Lago without documentation? Trump probably has cameras in the guest rooms. That reprobate lives to find dirt. I realize that politics is a relationship game. And success comes with quid pro quos exchanged between mutual backscratchers. However, McCarthy sacrificed his cojones for the job — one is in Trump's pocket and the other in MT Greene’s purse. Perhaps his self-delusion is sufficient to blind him to his enshrouding fog of failure. However, everyone else sees a loser who has paid a heavy price to bear scorn. Worse for Kevin, to get the top job, he had to make it once again easier to get rid of a Speaker. McCarthy made a deal with the reactionary dead-enders in his party. Now it only takes one Representative to “offer a privileged resolution declaring the Office of Speaker vacant.” This low bar means that one disgruntled Republican could call for McCarthy's ouster, and the House would immediately have to vote on the resolution. Then a simple majority (218 votes) could kick Kevin to the curb. I have no idea what the GOP will do. I doubt they do. I know Trump does not. They are all id and reaction. As Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.” And Republicans are famous for punching each other in the mouth. Since 1995 there have been five Republican Speakers of the House. Newt Gingrich was booted. John Boehner quit. Paul Ryan quit. Denny Hastert survived long enough to be the longest-serving Republican Speaker before retiring and serving 15 months in prison for diddling little boys. And now McCarthy is twisting in the wind. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Nancy Pelosi showed masterful command of her caucus. Not only keeping her job in 2018, when a new wave of young progressives painted her as out-of-touch and too corporate — but also bringing the new generation under her wing. Before retiring with grace, to the accolades of every Democrat. Her success in herding the Democratic cats was so thorough, that when she became Speaker she did so with rule changes enhancing her power. The rule changes that McCarthy reversed to bribe his dissenters to support him on the fifteenth ballot. The ones that leave him subject to the whims of every Tom, Dick, and Margy. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/8/2162831/-Is-there-a-weaker-man-than-Kevin-McCarthy Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/