I get the superficial "fantasy politics" aspect of this idea, but have Tea Partiers really thought through all the implications?
Of course, they haven't:
House conservatives are pushing for South Carolina-4 Representative Trey Gowdy as the #2 leader in the chamber following last week's surprise resignation of Speaker John Boehner.
This goes on the theory that since House Tea Partiers are conceding (!!!!) that they can't stop Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker, so Trey Gowdy as Majority Leader would be their consolation prize. Or, put another way, House Tea Partiers are refusing to stand and FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! to take it all.
"He is the kind of smart fighter our country needs and the American people deserve," Utah-4 Representative Mia Love said in a statement to the New York Times on Tuesday. "With impressive communication skills, genuine compassion and the tenacity of a prosecutor, he will unite the party and the people around a truly American agenda."
That would get filibustered to death by Senate Democrats without Barack Obama having to so much as change his tee time. Not much a Majority Leader Gowdy could do about that.
Love is among a rising number of conservatives behind a "Draft Gowdy" effort for a top leadership post, the Times reports.
I wonder what they've got against Trey Gowdy to sentence him to such a fate. After all, when you ascend to the leadership level, you by definition cease to be of one "wing" or faction. You represent the entire caucus and have to take everybody's wishes, desires, and demands into account. You....well, become a herder of cats. And I can guarantee that House conservatives' disillusionment with Majority Leader Trey Gowdy would start about thirty seconds after he had the job. The same people who are drafting him and singing his praises now would be accusing him of having "gone native" not too long thereafter.
Maybe that's why Gowdy doesn't want the majority leader's job. Or the Speakership. Ditto several other prominent House Tea Partiers. It's like they realize that leadership and ideological purity are mutually exclusive. And that the former would require them to have to grow up.
Sorry if you find that insulting, my Tea Party friends, but you know it's true. I think your time would be better spent contemplating why House Tea Partiers aren't FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHTING! to get one of their own in the Speaker's chair, no matter what the circumstances and odds. After all, wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to put on your Green Lantern rings and let your sheer indomitable will carry you all to victory?
To end the suspicion that Kevin McCarthy and Gowdy did not use the hearings for political purpose, the fair way is to refuse speakership to both until a "select committee" can be formed to examine the private emails of both Kevin McCarthy, Kurt Gowdy, (the henchman), and any other rEpublican who may have been among the "mob" that decided to use the hearings for that purpose, and when.
ReplyDeleteJustice demands the only method of self defense for Hillary that is possible - a corresponding inquiry to examine the source of the extended inquiry.
The Justice Dept if not the ethics committee of Congress should immediately secure the private emails of the GOP players in this set up, to reveal the truth of the matter, and dispel any possibility of a smoking gun, on abuse of process, in the Benghazii hearings.