This WaPo article was fascinating for what it didn’t consider. First, the flagrant flag flying:
On the morning the House Jan. 6 committee held its second public hearing, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was across town, echoing an instruction he has repeatedly given fellow Republicans: Ignore it.
Speaking to donors gathered at the Georgetown Four Seasons, McCarthy instead recommended Republicans talk about other issues that could help them regain the majority in both chambers of Congress, according to people familiar with the meeting, such as the soaring inflation rate and record-high gas prices — all under Democrats’ watch.
While most rank-and-file members in the Republican House conference have heeded his direction, another influential Republican has tuned into every hearing and has grown increasingly irate — to “the point of about to scream at the TV,” according to a close adviser — with what he views as the lack of defense by his Capitol Hill allies.
That being Trump, of course.
The thing about Trump and McCarthy is that they have history. On January 6th, McCarthy was reportedly angry and frightened and ready to put a knife in Trump’s back. More recently, Trump has been gloating over McCarthy’s rolling over and kissing his feet.
Could McCarthy’s “mistake” be an exceedingly nasty revenge? Corporations, faced with a quarterly loss, will often pile all sorts of bad financial things into that quarter on the theory that one really bad quarter is often forgotten by investors if the following quarters are much better.
Similarly, McCarthy may be trying to pile all the bad shit on Trump and a small coterie of his malignant adherents, such as Clark and Gaetz and all that crew, before setting the boat on fire and pushing it out to sea.
OK, probably not. I don’t take McCarthy as being that smart, that gutsy.
But there is a fascinating congruency. Maybe I’ve misjudged McCarthy.
