(May 11) The rot within U.S. House Republican leadership is obvious.
The rot is evident in Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s jihad to jettison House Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney in favor of an unaccomplished liberal Republican, while at the same time refusing to snub radical Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the scandal-ridden Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. He does this all because Cheney refuses to back down from saying the same thing about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that McCarthy himself originally said before he decided to go back to kissing former President Donald Trump’s ring.
Worse, McCarthy knew more directly than Cheney just how perfidious Trump’s behavior had been. Recall that McCarthy begged Trump on the phone to send aid against the Capitol rioters, and Trump refused. Trump knew full well that his own vice president’s life was in danger, yet he continued tweeting against Mike Pence after his conversation with McCarthy.
In evicting Cheney, McCarthy reveals himself as a political eunuch, willing to sacrifice truth, decency, and his own integrity. Worse, he does so on behalf of someone manifestly ill-prepared to do the job of Conference chairwoman. As my colleague Kaylee McGhee White explained, Cheney challenger Rep. Elise Stefanik has no credibility to lead her colleagues on key issues dividing most Republicans from President Joe Biden because she has been on Biden’s side of those issues. The worst was her vote for the Equality Act, among whose many bad provisions is one likely to force girls’ sports to disappear in favor of competition against biological males.
Stefanik also supports the job-killing Paris Agreement on “climate change.” She even opposed the 2017 tax cut that helped spur the strongest economic boom in more than half a century. How can she lead Republicans in blocking Biden from reversing the very tax cut she opposed?…. [The full column is here.]
