Before the U.S. House voted 216 to 210 to dump Kevin McCarthy as its speaker, conservative columnist Rich Lowry noted how ironic the outcome would be.
McCarthy’s unforgivable sin, according to Rep. Matt Gaetz, the GOP congressman from Florida who led the mutiny, was that the speaker had cut a last-minute deal with Democrats to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Yet, Gaetz had to depend even more heavily on Democrats to fire McCarthy. Gaetz needed the support of more than 200 Democrats to end McCarthy’s speakership after just nine months.
“Who’s the apostate now?” asked Lowry.
There’s no reason, though, to feel sorry for McCarthy. He was so desperate to become the House speaker early this year that he was willing to give a handful of far-right renegades the power to easily take him down in a hissy fit.
That concession almost guaranteed McCarthy’s tenure would be short-lived.
The reasonable majority in the Republican Party ceded power to the unreasonable minority. The former will play hell trying to get it back.
