Posted on 05/19/2017 8:22:01 AM PDT by shortstop
I'm unsure what to make of the retirement of Congressman Jason Chaffetz, because I don't know if it's a furlough or a desertion.
I don't know if he is thinking about his wallet or his country.
And only time will tell if this move is fateful or feckless.
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, a representative from Utah, Chaffetz says he's had a "midlife crisis," and he's tired of nights away from home and family. So he's going a new direction.
My initial reaction was contempt.
Because I hate quitters, and because the battle isn't over, and because many people invested many things in him and his usefulness to the country. When they send you in to fight the dragon, it's not about you anymore, it's about fighting the dragon.
At the church Chaffetz attends, they sometimes sing, "We are all enlisted till the conflict is o'er." This conflict is not over -- the battle to defend constitutional principles is not won -- and yet this warrior is quitting the field.
Service is hard, and it requires sacrifice. It requires you to put the greater good above yourself and to put your own interests last.
And if this is about cashing in and becoming a talking head on Fox, then we were all duped when we thought Jason Chaffetz was legit. If he is about to become the male Sarah Palin, it has all been a joke and we were the butt of it.
The people who first gathered to Jason Chaffetz, and have stood by him since, were not investing in his career. They were not interested in enhancing his resume or bank account. They were people who loved this country, saw its mission as divine, and feared assaults to its Constitution. They backed him because they thought he was capable of raising a standard of truth and fighting for it.
Their faith did not seem to have been misplaced.
Chaffetz was immediately and uniquely able to stand out from the crowd. He was not just a legislator, he was a communicator. He could speak truth persuasively and positively. He had the bully pulpit, but was not a bully.
Even when doing the invective of the inquisitor in the Oversight Committee, he was more righteous indignation than bitching grandstander.
His years in the House have led him steadily upward, which means they have increasingly empowered him. Empowered him to do the work he was sent to do -- not just representing the people of the 3rd District of Utah, but representing eternal and essential principles of liberty.
And then, out of the blue, he said he was quitting.
Not a quarter of the way into a new term -- not 25 percent of the way toward keeping the promise of the last election -- he was walking out the door.
At 50, in his prime, with 25 years of likely usefulness ahead of him, he was walking away like it was nothing.
That rubs me the wrong way.
Unless fate takes this where we can't imagine. Unless fate takes Jason Chaffetz where we can't imagine.
America will not be saved by the choir preaching of Fox News. You don't spread your gospel by hollering it to a niche audience locked behind the doors of a cable channel, you spread it by shouting it on the street corner. You need to be heard by people who don't know they need to hear you.
But maybe a Fox chair builds credibility within the group of people whose votes determine the outcome of Republican primaries. Maybe this is a waypoint on a journey further and higher than the resignation suggests. Maybe this is Reagan traveling the country giving dinner speeches and making friends.
I hope it is.
I hope that this is an end around which allows greater service to the Republic. That I can get behind and believe in. But a cashing in, I can't.
Because it's never about yourself. Opportunities and talents are never about self-advancement, they are always about service and the greater good. If you keep that perspective, you're part of the solution. If you lose it, you are part of the problem.
Jason Chaffetz was sent to Washington on a mission.
Only time will tell if this move is a fateful enhancement of that mission, or a dishonorable abandonment of it.
Chaffetz was useless anyway.
Good riddance, maybe Utah can do better, but I won’t hold my breath.
The Cheap Labor Express seems to run Utah.
All talk, no action. Chaffitz is a putz ...
Meh.
All of a sudden, he rushed home to UT for "family time" and when he returned to D.C., nothing ever came of either Clinton dirty laundry or Chaffetz expose'.
Agreed. He claims to want to spend more time with family but he has said he is going to work for Fox News which is located in NYC?????
How does this make sense?
I wonder if he was caught with someone or something and is resigning instead of taking the heat for it????
I am sure the job at FOX carries with it a huge salary. What has happened at FOX since the election, well, for one thing, a good number of prime people have left or are leaving. I am sure they made him an offer he could not refuse. Furthermore, if the latest management at FOX is paying this guy money, there is a reason. It surely is not they want a hard core border wall conservative in there.
He’s done his service...not unusual for men in 50’s to change course....after all we don’t “own” representatives for life.
Hope he does good at Fox and will look forward to how he does....IMO it’s an acceptable move.....
Remember, Chaffetz gave the ‘first’ story that he wanted to return back here to Utah and maybe run for Gov. in 2020??? Well he came back, got an ear full and went back to Washington D.C.
Then all of a sudden he has given up his ‘wife is in Utah and the kids are gone and I'm tired of sleeping on the sofa in my office in Washington D.C.’ so I'm going to go back to Utah...right...
Well now we hear he is going to Fox News Network, New York perhaps??? We only have a Fox on channel 13 here in Utah, if you don't have cable, which I don't...and they only break in with Fox News Network on something like happened yesterday in Town Square in New York...
Then he had to have surgery on his foot...blah, blah, blah...
He has gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he is running for his life, thinking that whoever it is that is treathening him he can spill the beans on T.V.
Bet your bottom dollar it has nothing to do with anyone but HIMSELF and NOONE else!!!
There are more loose women in NY. Ask Trump.
I liked Chaffetz. He was a good orator and strongly confronted liars.
He was on Tucker the other night and I swear I thought he was gonna break out crying, something doesnt add up but good riddance.
Agreed, like Gowdy and Issa, all talk. But I suspect someone has some dirt on this cat and is using it. His behavior is bizarre.
Yeh buh bye RINO!
American politicians are not allowed to rise to positions of power unless the Establishment has something on them. That’s why Ron Paul was always marginalized - and why they hysterically hate Trump.
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