Bottom line: Rep. Paul Gosar wins unless he is expelled
After he was censured by the House of Representatives and removed from committee assignments, Rep. Paul Gosar went on Twitter to call his colleagueimposed punishment “kabuki theater.” And ... he was right.
A member of Congress who is censured does not lose his title, his salary, his staff, his office or his ability to vote. The notion of censure comes from a time when politicians actually had a personal sense of honor. And it meant something.
Being censured, in theory, is being publicly shamed.
A punishment from which Gosar is immune.
It’s simple: A person cannot be shamed if, like Gosar, he has none. Which is why Gosar tweeted:
I was surrounded by members of Congress who reject the kabuki theater we saw. This was an historic first to be surrounded by members in the Well of the House in solidarity against the mob of censors. Everyone knows this censure was theater.
Sadly, Gosar was, in fact, joined by equally shameless Republicans, including Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, who chose to stand with Gosar, a member of the United States House of Representatives who posted an altered video on social media depicting himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden.
Following his censure Gosar retweeted the video that got him into trouble in the first place, demonstrating just how little the censure means to him, or to any of those in his political cult.
Gosar’s siblings have tried for years to spread the word about their wacky brother.
Six brothers and sisters appeared in ads speaking out against him and endorsing his opponent.
Earlier this summer, when Gosar was pushing lies about election fraud, his brother Dave Gosar said, “I consider him a traitor to this country. I consider him a
traitor to his family. He doesn’t see it. He’s disgraced and dishonored himself.”
On Wednesday, as the censure vote was being taken, Gosar’s brother Tim told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, “It comes down to a choice. Do you support someone who is reckless and dangerous and unhinged or do you step up and work for the soul of our country and promote our democracy and the future for our kids.”
Wallace then asked Tim Gosar if he considered his brother to be dangerous.
“I do,” he said. “Yeah, I do. I don’t try to choose my words loosely. I believe he’s dangerous.”
And he went one step further. “He needs to be expelled,” Tim Gosar said.
That’s it in a nutshell.
The leaders of the Republican Party, like the rest of us, have watched Gosar’s screwball antics for years. They would, if pressed into honesty, agree with Gosar’s brother that he is “reckless and unhinged.”
He doesn’t belong in Congress. Yet most GOP members remain silent, and even defend Gosar, knowing that anything less than being expelled is a victory for Gosar and his kooky Greek chorus of congressional comrades.
The GOP elite not only needs those people. It fears them.
Proving, in the end, that Tim Gosar was correct when he was asked if he thought his brother is dangerous.
“I do,” Tim said. “I believe he’s dangerous.”