House Speaker McCarthy either brain dead or mendacious
Siding with the fire over the firefighters
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struggles with nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, but articles like “the” and “a” are less anguishing. The proof is fortified on every occasion the House Speaker attempts a complete, coherent sentence. Mr. McCarthy acknowledged to reporters his expressive limitations, “It’s bad,” and amplified, “but soon it be less badder.”
Accordingly, Speaker McCarthy has a credible brain dead defense for his professed ignorance or agnosticism of major controversies swirling like whirlwinds on Capitol Hill. As recounted by Dana Milbank in today’s Washington Post, the Speaker is clueless about:
The volumes of discovery in the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News Network showing the latter’s marquee hosts and managers disbelieving President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” jumbo fabrications but promoting the fictions nonetheless;
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson’s airbrushed version of the January 6th insurrection that omitted the following: At least 138 police officers injured. Property damage approximated $2.7 million. Rioters stormed the offices of Nancy Pelosi, flipping tables and ripping photos from walls; the office of the Senate Parliamentarian was ransacked; art was looted; and feces were tracked into several hallways. Windows were smashed throughout the building, leaving the floor littered with glass and debris. Rioters damaged, turned over, or stole furniture. One door had "MURDER THE MEDIA" scribbled onto it. Rioters damaged Associated Press recording and broadcasting equipment outside the Capitol after chasing away reporters. Rioters also destroyed a display honoring the life of congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis;
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell’s aspersions on Mr. Carlson’s propaganda;
President Trump’s January 6th harangue to his armed mob to storm the Capitol to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from counting state-certified electoral votes;
Representative Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) dismissing the violent insurrection seeking to overthrow the constitutional order by force and violence as a “normal tourist visit;”
An agreement reached by his negotiator to investigate the January 6th attack;
President Trump’s infamous phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state exhorting a false discovery of 11,780 votes to make him the winner in the 2020 presidential election in the state;
President Trump’s crude, vile, tirade against four congresswomen of color (three born in the United States) to “go back” where they came from evoking chants of “send her back” from his white supremacist rally attendees;
Unhinged Rep. Marjory Taylor Greene’s harassment and defamation of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just off the House floor;
Tucker Carlson’s insinuation that the January 6th violent insurrection was indistinguishable from a Mary Poppins picnic with Jane and Michael Banks.
This list must be truncated as a concession to the shortness of life. But it is long enough to establish that the House Speaker is brain dead beyond a reasonable doubt or is feigning ignorance to escape political embarrassment or self-incrimination. Neither is flattering to his character nor qualifications for office.
The Speaker has tacitly sided with the firefighters over the fire on January 6th—a modern version of Benedict Arnold but to our constitutional dispensation. Mr. McCarthy should be chastened by poet Dante: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” But I doubt McCarthy has ever heard of Dante or The Divine Comedy.
As a final note, the Speaker has voiced eagerness to share the more than 41,000 hours of the Capitol’s January 6th security footage with the American people in the interest of complete transparency and the ability to question Tucker Carlson’s airbrushed version. Taking the Speaker at his word, I have respectfully written him asking for a copy of the video footage Mr. Carlson received and the place where delivery might be made. (The Speaker’s Capitol Office is a 5-minute walk from my office). At present, silence. How many believe Speaker McCarthy will honor his unconditional promise?
That’s why he is unfit to serve and a clear and present danger to constitutional government.