Kevin McCarthy got the GOP conference he deserves
Poor Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
The California native who, by all accounts, came to Washington 16 years ago with the sole intent of becoming speaker of the House one day faced an embarrassing defeat this week when he repeatedly failed to win enough votes from his own party.
There’s no mystery as to how McCarthy, the former House minority leader and House majority leader for the Republicans, got here. He’s an unprincipled sellout who made all the wrong bargains with all the wrong people. And in the end, it might not have even been worth it.
McCarthy made his deals with the devil early and often. When then candidate Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape leaked, he scolded Republicans who were contemplating abandoning the nominee. He was so obsequious and loyal to Trump that the former president would come to call him “My Kevin,” an emasculating nickname that McCarthy didn’t seem to mind.
His ability to wear two faces and straddle fences is by now well known. He’s occasionally rebuked Trump without abandoning him, first blaming him for the Jan. 6 insurrection and then supporting his election lies and seeking to whitewash the damning details of that day.
He’s attempted at times to lightly corral the attention-seeking disrupters in his own House without actually disciplining them, and in some cases, promising them new committee assignments if he became speaker.
He bent over even more to try to win the role, making all sorts of promises to the group of 20 or so Republican hostage-takers who are refusing to vote for him.
Imagine having such a weak constitution that you’d actually abide this self-sabotaging and humiliating concession just to preside over a group of people who are determined to ruin you.
But McCarthy has the Republican conference he deserves. In tolerating and in fact courting new Republican House candidates who were less interested in governing than they were sucking up to Trump and becoming famous, he got Republican House members who aren’t at all interested in governing, and who are willing to blow up their own majority in the process.
As McCarthy’s former mentor Rep. Bill Thomas has recently said: “Kevin basically is whatever you want him to be. He lies. He’ll change the lie if necessary. How can anyone trust his word?”
Well as it turns out, enough people don’t, including the Republican rebels who refuse to nominate him.
Even Trump wasn’t helpful in his time of need, letting McCarthy fend for himself during three failed ballot votes. He belatedly weighed in on his social media platform, first praising the process that kept McCarthy from the job, before imploring people to go ahead and vote for him.
But will Trump’s lame, limp, and late endorsement be enough to sway the detractors?
For the guy who thought he’d played his cards so well by putting himself before his principles and his country, McCarthy left his fate in the hands of a rogue group of lawmakers who have made the same calculation.
Even McCarthy’s defenders are unwittingly making him look impotent by blasting Matt Gaetz & Co. as losers. After all, they’re still the so-called losers who, so far, have outplayed Kevin.
Newt Gingrich said of the rebels — the ones McCarthy is now beholden to — “these people can’t play tic-tac-toe.” Sean Hannity said House Republicans are now “on the verge of becoming a total clown show” for refusing to nominate McCarthy. And Steve Doocy called the state of affairs a “disaster for the Republicans.” They’re right, but it’s not the Republicans who got us here. It’s McCarthy who got us here.
After years of selling his soul to all the wrong people and for all the wrong reasons, he has no one to blame but himself.