To readers: the war between Israel and Hamas commands the headlines and rightly so. It can have frightfully dangerous implications. But we’ve got our own problems in Washington too, problems whose implications can change this nation. That’s what this morning’s column is about. Greg
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It’s been disgraceful. It’s been dysfunctional. It’s been dangerous.
Kevin McCarthy was deposed as Speaker of the House on October 5th— by his own Republican caucus— yet here we are, almost two weeks later, and unless they overcome their deep differences today, Republicans haven’t reached agreement on a successor. Someone to get the House back into business. Someone to step in as second in line to the presidency.
No surprise though. Look at the choices they’ve made. First, they proposed Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, who once had the shameful taste to compare himself to David Duke, a fellow Louisianan and former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
But Scalise fell far short of the numbers he’d need to secure the Speaker’s gavel, so he dropped out and the caucus next went to the man he’d beaten in the first round, Ohio’s polarizing congressman Jim Jordan. He’s not a conservative legislator, he’s a conservative agitator. He’s not uncooperative, he’s uncompromising. He’s not partisan, he’s hyper-partisan. Saying that “the president should have never been impeached in the first place,” he wants to expunge the record of Donald Trump’s two impeachments while, as chair of the Judiciary Committee, he’s trying to impeach Joe Biden even without proof of impeachable wrongdoing.
It says a lot about the man that other flamethrowers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz have excitedly said that Jim Jordan would be a great speaker. Gaetz asserted on CNN, he’s “the second most popular living Republican in America.”
But popular or not, he’s a failure at the fundamental job of a congressman. He has served in the House for sixteen years and never once got a single bill of his own to the floor, let alone turned one into law. Former speaker John Boehner, who rarely spoke ill of his colleagues, called Jordan a “legislative terrorist.” This would be a dismal record for a speaker whose primary job is bring opposing sides together and move legislation to an affirmative vote.
Then there’s this unforgivable liability: Jim Jordan is one of Donald Trump’s biggest fans, and Trump’s one of his. He helped spread the treacherous lie that the 2020 presidential election had been rigged. He worked with Trump to reverse the election’s result. Even after Trump’s followers staged their violent insurrection of January 6th, he voted that night to overturn the electoral vote. So it’s no shock that the ex-president gave Jordan his unequivocal approval. “Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C.,” Trump wrote on his website, “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
As Liz Cheney said in a speech the other day, Jim Jordan was part of the anti-democratic conspiracy to put Trump back in the White House. If he wins the speakership, she said, “There would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”
Originally the numbers suggested that he might not get that far. Not only were there 81 Republicans who didn’t give Jordan their vote within the caucus, 55 of them said they would oppose him for speaker when the full House votes. It would only take a few to keep that commitment to keep Jordan away from the pinnacle of power. At this point, although Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is four votes short of a majority, he has more backers than anyone else.
Jordan’s allies are doing all they can to overcome that. The New York Times over the weekend reported this: “Several of Mr. Jordan’s supporters have posted the phone numbers of mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers they count as holdouts, encouraging followers to flood the Capitol switchboard with calls demanding they back Mr. Jordan — or face the wrath of conservative voters as they gear up for primary season.” Evidently they targeted about a dozen of those holdouts with these tactics of militant extortion and political terrorism, then yesterday the fire-breathing extremist met with most of them and from the sound of things, almost made like a moderate. Everyone knows a leopard doesn’t change his spots but some, at least, say they have fallen into line.
Meanwhile, what does this mean to us? For almost the past two weeks and maybe longer, paralysis. We are closer again to the cliff of a government shutdown. November 17th, just a month from tomorrow, is the next deadline for Congress to pass twelve bills to keep government going. But without a speaker, the House can’t act. A request from the White House for additional funding for Ukraine is also on hold. And likewise, any additional aid to America’s ally Israel for its war against Hamas is uncertain. Even a bipartisan resolution from Republican congressman Michael McCaul and Democrat Gregory Meeks, condemning Hamas and voicing support for Israel, is stuck. “We can’t even vote on that,” Meeks says, “until we put a Speaker in the chair.”
As the world watches, the ramifications are risky. Congressman McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says his party has played “a dangerous game.” He adds, “Our adversaries are watching us.”
When the House gathers again, there might be a stalemate, there might be a compromise candidate. But if not, a reckless man like Jim Jordan will determine the agenda of Congress. In the meantime, it is “a clown show” and they “keep running lunatics.” Those quotes don’t come from Democrats, they come from Republicans. Nebraska congressman Don Bacon was scathing about those lunatics: "If you give a five-year-old who is misbehaving terribly more ice cream, they will be worse behaving, right? That’s what’s going to happen here if we reward that behavior.”
Is this mess the best they can come up with? It tells us just about everything we need to know about the dominant wing of today’s Republican Party.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Sorry, I meant James Webb
Good and necessary essay, Greg. Jordan if he wins will only make matters worse. An unserious man who delights in lies and destruction.