The Puzzle That Is Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Many of you will note that I tried to give the Turtle the benefit of the doubt since he got Trump’s judges confirmed. But since then, his actions against Trump showed his true Swamp colors, complete with their unsavory olfactory component. Which brings us to Kevin McCarthy.

Many of us have been uncertain about McCarthy, and for apparent good reason. During his tenure as Minority Leader in the House, he did an excellent imitation of a wheeler and dealer, with little evidence that he had any principles whatever. He acted more as a middleman than someone at the tiller of state, and that really makes pinning him down seem like trying to throw Jell-O for distance. Either he was completely worthless, or he was something other than he appeared.

The fight over the Speaker’s chair leads me to suggest a thought experiment to sort out just who Kevin McCarthy might actually be. Two things lead me to ask questions. First, since the Speaker election, McCarthy has actually done a lot of good things for the MAGA cause. He has appointed the needed select committees that have thrown Democrats into a tizzy. He appointed key Freedom Caucus members to those committees. And just days ago, he released over forty thousand hours of January 6 video that the Democrats refused to let America see. Hmmm….

This week a caller to David Webb’s talk show made a very curious point. The caller lived in McCarthy’s district. When constituents raised serious questions about major issues like water management (inquiring farmers want to know…) no one at any level of government gave those citizens the time of day. Except Kevin McCarthy. He wanted to know exactly what the problems were and how he could help. He stayed in touch with the people

Here's a theory that allows all the facts on the table to fit with the simulacrum of the Speaker. There are two fundamental premises.

First, as asserted by some conservative members of Congress, McCarthy is actually a conservative. He’s not a RINO wearing a MAGA hat.

Second, Kevin is a very savvy political operative. If we put these two together, a different picture of the man comes into focus. Whether it’s the actual man or some weirdly Pandorean illusion, only time will tell.

As has been dutifully reported, it took fifteen votes and lots of negotiations before the deal was done. But who was negotiating with whom? Over what? News reports indicated that the Freedom Caucus holdouts were demanding some very important concessions before voting for him. But is that true? The holdouts seemed to think it was true. The RINO wing wasn’t talking.

Obviously, the RINO wing was ready to take McCarthy at face value. He was a deal-maker and would go along to get along. The hard-liners had to be the problem. But they held the keys to the kingdom. Without them, he didn’t have enough votes. So he had to take their demands to the others for their ultimate consent. And the way he presented this would be key. If he’s a real conservative, he’d present the demands as “I’m stuck with these” so that the more liberal Rs would think that he was reluctantly going to have to accept the conditions. If he were a liberal, he’d use exactly the same language. Thus, a savvy deal-maker would present himself as coerced, and concessions would be needed just to get him elected.

Then McCarthy would go back to the Freedom Caucus and tell them they got one part of the package, and they would say it’s not enough. And the dance would continue. At the same time, a few members of the Caucus, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, supported McCarthy from the beginning. Did they know something?

Thanks for posting, interesting take. My take is, conservatives could have done worse, weren’t likely to do any better.

Next, the real test: The Constitution says the House shall pass an annual Budget. Pass a budget, no money fights afterward, no shutdown threats, no debt ceiling, no giant omnibus bills full of wasted money and graft. The House hasn’t done its job since 2009, IIRC. I’m not expecting any joy on that issue. If the House passes a budget, we have a political party. If not, we still have a UniParty.

Yeah, I don’t buy the premise of the article.

Mainly because I don’t believe in looking for conservative policy gains, by identifying “good guys” and “bad guys.”

I see trouble happening one event and one day at a time. Good stuff happens with one stand at time in the same way.

I don’t care if McCarthy is a conservative or a RINO, I care whether he makes the next stand.

McConnell, Manchin, Youngkin, DeSantis are all folks we need to depend on in the near future. The results probably aren’t going to satisfy me. Thats the way it goes and I will have to look forward to the next policy confrontation after that with new people. I will have to hold my nose about something in each figure’s past.

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