The Problem Dissolver's Caucus

 

Yesterday the House Democrats sided with the MAGA extreme fringe loons to oust Kevin "My Kevin" McCarthy from the speaker's chair. Now, as The Omnivore undersatnds it, the House can only do two things: adjourn or vote in a new speaker.

The right-wing finger-waver's caucus of pundits is verah, verah mad . . . at the Democrats. PJ Media, lamenting on the "dumpster fire" the GOP has plunged itself into, says that McCarthy learned the key lesson: Don't Trust Democrats. Hot Air rediscovers the story of the scorpion and the frog and casts the Democrats in the Problem Solvers Caucus as the scorpion--biding its time to strike when the Frog is in the middle of the river!

Yes: The Democrats are definitely, definitely to blame for this.

Let's look under the covers.

Under The Covers

Hot Air notes that the Problem Solver's Caucus--a group of "bi-partisan" Republicans and Democrats, has exsted for six years and never did anything but virtue signal. They were supposed to protect the institution from the extremes of MAGA and that was clearly nonsense as they did nothing.

Well, wait, they did one thing: they made it harder to remove a speaker!

Kevin, hat in hand, bargained that protection away when groveling with the MAGA extremes. You would think that the writer, having typed that sentence would ask himself why Democrats ought to vote to keep McCarthy in the first place at that point.

Of course, he doesn't--he laments that PSC Dems only care about Democrat Speakers--not the institution. He's so close to getting it, he should post on /r/selfaware wolves, the Reddit forum for people who are *this close* to being self-ware . . . but fall short.

No, what's under the covers is a whole lot of bullshit. Let's see.

The Pro-Temp speaker, an R's firs (and probably only) move was to oust Nancy Pelosi from her small ex-speaker's office. This was done for sheer pettiness's sake. Considering that reachin' around the isle, it looks like the scorpion was right to strike (the 'frog' was gonna try to drown him anyway).

Also: McCarthy, who the finger-wagglers think should've been saved by Democrats, was:

* Opening impeachment inquiries into President Biden

* Disparaged the Jan 6th Committee

* Didn't offer any concession to the Democrats if they kept him--after giving away the shop to the MAGA extremes.

* Did his fucking job by passing a bill to keep the government open--something the finger wagglers thought was a great concession to Democrats.

The bar, as they say, was low.

The time for McCarthy to work with Democrats to shore up his position was months ago. Yes: he had an awful caucus. Yes, he built a big red self-destruct button into his speakership (one of the conditions for his "yes" vote from the Freedom Caucus was that any one member could call a vote to remove him). If he wanted defenses against that, he should've cut some back-room deals with the Democrats before now.

Now? They did what any normal minority party would do with someone who was taking hostile steps against their incumbent president.

It wasn't the Democrat's job to save him--and they did not.

The GOP punditry's rage at them is a tacit admission that their own party can't be expected to wipe its own ass--someone grown-up has to do it for them.