OPINION:
“Ah, watch out! You might get what you’re after.” — Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican and psycho killer, led the smallest caucus in Congress this week across the aisle and into the lap of Democrats. He and his Suicide Caucus joined 208 Democrats to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post.
What a day that was.
So much for the so-called Hastert Rule that the Suicide Caucus claims to treasure so dearly. Requiring support from a majority of Republicans for floor action apparently applies only to Mr. McCarthy.
Such slippery people.
Annihilating the Hastert Rule is, you might say, the ultimate RINO move. These people are into making flippy-floppy, and doing it far, far, far better. But House Democrats sure didn’t mind.
They had found a bar called heaven.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat, was so excited to have Mr. Gaetz in his midst that he appeared to have taken a shower before he came to work. Rep. Ilhan Omar, radical Minnesota Democrat, did not bother to conceal her infatuation with Mr. Gaetz’s rear end as he harangued and harangued from the Democrat lectern on the House floor. In her defense, perhaps it was just brotherly love.
Such amorous and unnatural displays of infatuation on the House floor could be complicated for Mr. Gaetz, who has long denied public accusations that he had an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl. Such denials are not to be confused with Mr. Gaetz’s brave decision to be the first grown man in Congress to come out in defense of Britney Spears in the Free Britney movement several years ago.
Nothing says you are not a pedophile like joining a movement on behalf of a vulnerable, half-dressed teeny-bopper songstress with a history of mental illness.
The problem with Mr. Gaetz’s suicide mission this week was the same problem he had when he opposed Mr. McCarthy for speaker nine months ago. He had all kinds of complaints, but not one single solution.
Many of his complaints are valid. I would even call some of them the Holy Grail for finally fixing the thoroughly corrupted House of Representatives.
Yet none of these things gets fixed by removing Mr. McCarthy. Or the next speaker. Or the next one.
Nothing gets fixed until people like Matt Gaetz and the Suicide Caucus persuade fellow Republicans to join their cause. It is called politics — same as it ever was. And it requires leadership and vision, even if only once in a lifetime.
In defense of Mr. Gaetz, this is far beyond his capabilities. He is by far the most loathed member of the Republican caucus. It probably doesn’t help that he’s not an ordinary guy burning down the House, rather he looks like the evil Penguin character from the Batman comics and movies — if Penguin scored himself a prescription for Ozempic.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t right on the issues. Single-issue legislation and regular order for approving all government spending is the only way to clear out the rat’s nest that Congress has become.
The appropriations process is so byzantine and opaque that no member has a clue what he is voting for and voters have no hope of understanding any of it. It is complicated for a reason: That is the only way lobbyists can live their wild, wild life and get Congress to spend billions of dollars on unpopular ventures like the war in Ukraine while starving crucially important priorities such as securing our border.
Voters will reward Republicans for restoring order to this madness. And if Democrats don’t like it, they can shut the government down again. Same as it ever was.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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