Pros and cons of kicking Santos out of Congress

On Wednesday night, the House of Representatives voted on whether to remove Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., over his long, long trail of fabrications. They voted to keep him! I got a look at the list of factors that members weighed before deciding, and here they are:

Pros

• We won’t have to ask questions like, “What is that baby doing here?” and “Whose baby is that?” and “Oh, my God, why is George Santos walking around with an unidentified baby?”

• No longer would we be haunted by thoughts of the “2400 dogs and 280 cats” his campaign website claimed his charity had “effectively” rescued. (What does this mean? The numbers are oddly specific! And, frankly, I have never seen a sentence where the word “effectively” did not feel like “legally, this should be the word ‘not.’ ”)

• He has already been offered a job as one of the two guards in a logic puzzle.

• This is our chance to bestow freedom on a series of ties trapped against their will inside a series of zip-up sweaters.

• People would no longer be struck by the floating “Citation Needed” bubble that hovers in the air over Santos’ head whenever he makes a claim!

• We wouldn’t have to describe our colleague as “the embattled New York representative who allegedly stole funds for a homeless veteran’s ailing dog.”

• Technically, his work publicizing the fictional television character of George Santos crosses the SAG-AFTRA picket

line.

• His exit would give the spotlight back to the other Republicans in Congress!

Cons

• His exit would give the spotlight back to the other Republicans

in Congress!

• What if someone in the House ever needs a board-certified heart surgeon to do emergency open-heart surgery?

• He might take his talent for fabrication somewhere else (say, write textbooks for the state of

Florida).

• It seems unfair to the man who invented the atomic bomb, according to his biopic, “Oppenheimer.”

• This seems like a rude thing to do to our 16th president, the man who held the Union together during the Civil War.

• He is best friends with all the kings of England, both past and present, and expelling him might upset diplomatic relations! • He is God’s favorite.

• He killed the Philistine warrior Goliath with just a single stone from his slingshot.

• We wouldn’t get to ask questions like “Oh, my God, why is George Santos walking around with an unidentified baby?”

• It would set the possibly untenable precedent that members of Congress should not lie about every aspect of their biography and do what appears to be large amounts of fraud.

Matt McClain/Washington Post Deep thought went into the vote on whether to hold Rep. George Santos accountable for untruths and what sure looks like fraud.