Politics, Government
Speaker McCarthy's Freak Show
A lot is going on these days on Capitol Hill, and some of it is funny. A video of Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) strutting down the halls of an office building dressed in white while carrying a large white balloon made me smile. Congresswoman Boebert (R-CO) got my attention by bombarding tech executives with questions about why her Twitter account was suspended. And, of course, there is the image of George Santos smiling and lying. I watched his exchange with Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) before the State of the Union address. Romney told Santos he should resign.
The saga of the Long Island Liar is just a small part of the multi-ringed circus brought to us by the Republican party. Other featured players have almost household names: Gaetz, Gosar, Biggs, and Jordan. As a group, they have delivered "news" every day since Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House. The news consists of outrageous stunts, tweets, and subpoenas in the case of the newly empowered Judiciary Committee Chairman Jordan. None of the news involves working with Democrats, solving problems, or trying to make life better for their constituents.
Have you noticed that the freak show gets more press than the entire Senate? It also comes close to trumping coverage of President Biden, which is one reason the President spent about 40 minutes of his 73-minute State of the Union address telling the public about his legislative accomplishments.
Why doesn't the public know much about Biden's legislative victories? One answer is that they are not as engaging as Lauren Boebert joking about Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) carrying a bomb on a Capitol Hill elevator.
These days, with the population of possible Chinese spy balloons exploding, we need a good laugh. The problem with the Republican nonsense is that it really isn't funny. The freak show isn't taking place in a circus tent. The forum is the U.S. Capitol, the same building in which more than a dozen of the most freakish legislators aided and abetted the Trump insurrection.
Speaker McCarthy is a large part of the problem. Hungry to satisfy his own ego-driven quest…
