The WSJ has become a mouthpiece of politicos just like other mainstream outlets. BAM!
They have gone full in to support the Ukraine war and now fall in line to stick up for McCarthy, who can't get it done. The GOP has morphed into a bunch of holier-than-thou anti-abortion activists who've abandoned Reagan's tenants of smaller government and less taxation. They now join the Dems in supporting proxy wars where we burn money and more importantly, play a hand in millions of people being slaughtered. Or to quote Henry Kissinger "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but being its friend is lethal".
Of course, he's referring to Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan...blah blah blah. Did I forget Zelensky?
Gaetz may be a douchebag himself but he properly calls out McCarthy on overspending, the Ukraine war, and inaction on securing the border. It's hard to fault him on that, but the WSJ manages to do so. F-ck them.
Gaetz & Co: A Tale as Old as Time
Kevin McCarthy falls as speaker thanks to an act of two-bit political hackery.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Oct. 5, 2023 5:37 pm ET
Pundits are laboring mightily to imbue Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster with historic or cultural significance, with references to “populism” and 1910 and the tea-party movement. If only it were so interesting, rather than one more Washington example of two-bit political hackery—a tale as old as time.
Give Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and his crew of slang-whangers their due: They can spin with the best of them. There they nobly stood Tuesday on the House floor—side by side with Democrats—to explain that they alone were real conservatives; they alone cared about regular order and spending and the border; they alone had the courage to hold Mr. McCarthy to his promises. So slick was this performance that they alone were then able to march out of the chamber and raise millions of dollars off it.
That those claims are hokum is obvious to anyone who tuned in the past 11 months, rather than only for the final speechifying. It’s worse than hokum, given that many of the offenses the rebels cited as grounds for deposing Mr. McCarthy were of their own making. How dare Mr. McCarthy fail to pass all 12 House spending bills by Sept. 30? How dare he then go to Democrats to get the votes to keep the government open?
The insurgents engineered that outcome. Last November a newly elected GOP majority was raring to go to work on reform and oversight. It instead remained in paralysis—unable to elect committee chairmen, hire staff or make plans—all through November and December. Many of this week’s rebels—self-labeled even back then as the “Never Kevin” movement—refused to provide Mr. McCarthy the final speaker votes, instead throwing in behind a vanity run by Rep. Andy Biggs. They dragged out the process even after Congress convened in January, piling up demands and ultimately requiring 15 ballots to elect a speaker.
The same group then helped drag out internal negotiations over the GOP position on the debt limit, delaying Mr. McCarthy’s deal with the White House that ultimately led to top-line numbers for those 12 bills.
As work belatedly commenced on appropriations, the same group strung the bills out in committee and blocked them from the floor. In the weeks leading to the shutdown date, a handful of rebels—including Reps. Biggs, Ken Buck, Eli Crane and Matt Rosendale—tanked the Pentagon spending bill more than once. This week they complained that Mr. McCarthy hadn’t quickly passed the bills they held hostage.
The purpose of all this? Some Republicans noted that Mr. Gaetz’s antics were driven by his need for attention. Cameras. Reporters flocking. Invitations from TV bookers. All true, but even this observation doesn’t fully capture his self-interest.
It’s impossible to separate Mr. Gaetz’s public grandstanding this week from his personal problem in the House Ethics Committee—especially given that he has admitted the tie. He has spent two years furious that Mr. McCarthy wouldn’t break the rules and somehow intervene to stop that probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and misuse of funds. More recently he has even claimed (without evidence) that Mr. McCarthy somehow inspired the probe. “I believe that Speaker McCarthy is trying to signal to the Ethics Committee to pursue me,” he said on Monday, even as he asked a credulous America to believe this open bitterness had nothing to do with his ensuing McCarthy takedown.
Mr. Gaetz and some of his fellow rebels were also using the moment for their ambitions to move up from the House. Mr. Gaetz is expected to run for Florida governor, and thanks to this week’s drama the donations are flowing. Mr. Rosendale is gunning for another run at a Montana Senate seat. His 2018 attempt was an acute embarrassment—he got thumped in a conservative state by Democrat Jon Tester—and is naturally facing headwinds against a second go. What better way to rouse the primary base, and hoover up money, than to pose as the conservative who slayed the “establishment”?
Rep. Nancy Mace’s South Carolina district is the subject of a Supreme Court gerrymandering case that could make her re-election even tougher. As the Journal recently reported: “She has indicated she’d be interested in statewide office in South Carolina and has been advised she has some work to do to win over the state’s conservative base.”
Spare a thought for all the poor souls who actually bought the noble line. It’s a testament to how frustrated Americans are by Washington’s dysfunction—how anxious they are to think someone in D.C. actually has their backs—that they were open to this playacting.
The sad truth is that Washington has always been a town divided between those who put in the work and those who preen. The pity is that more of those conservatives who really are toiling day in and out to notch real policy victories—senators, House Freedom Caucus members, activists—aren’t more willing to highlight the distinction. They are only undermining their own cause.
Write to kim@wsj.com.
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