The rot within U.S. House Republican leadership is obvious.
The rot is evident in Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s jihad to jettison House Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney in favor of an unaccomplished liberal Republican, while at the same time refusing to snub radical Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the scandal-ridden Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. He does this all because Cheney refuses to back down from saying the same thing about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that McCarthy himself originally said before he decided to go back to kissing former President Donald Trump’s ring.
Worse, McCarthy knew more directly than Cheney just how perfidious Trump’s behavior had been. Recall that McCarthy begged Trump on the phone to send aid against the Capitol rioters, and Trump refused. Trump knew full well that his own vice president’s life was in danger, yet he continued tweeting against Mike Pence after his conversation with McCarthy.
In evicting Cheney, McCarthy reveals himself as a political eunuch, willing to sacrifice truth, decency, and his own integrity. Worse, he does so on behalf of someone manifestly ill-prepared to do the job of Conference chairwoman. As my colleague Kaylee McGhee White explained, Cheney challenger Rep. Elise Stefanik has no credibility to lead her colleagues on key issues dividing most Republicans from President Joe Biden because she has been on Biden’s side of those issues. The worst was her vote for the Equality Act, among whose many bad provisions is one likely to force girls’ sports to disappear in favor of competition against biological males.
Stefanik also supports the job-killing Paris Agreement. She even opposed the 2017 tax cut that helped spur the strongest economic boom in more than half a century. How can she lead Republicans in blocking Biden from reversing the very tax cut she opposed?
Meanwhile, Cheney is not only a solid conservative on issues across the board, but she is also a skilled communicator and an ace at coordinating Republican “messaging” with Republican substantive initiatives. As that is exactly what the job of Conference chairwoman entails, it is foolish to replace her with the relatively liberal Stefanik, still green at just 36 years old, who has not demonstrated abilities at those tasks.
Cheney was great at the job. Even Trump himself praised her repeatedly, saying she has “a pretty unlimited future.” Eleven-term Republican Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, who successfully led the National Republican Congressional Committee for four years, said last fall that Cheney “kind of reminds you of [revered former British Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher or somebody else like that in history: a strong person, in a big position, a woman who stands her ground in an otherwise male-dominated conference.”
The Conference job is important. When Rep. Dick Armey of Texas led the House GOP Conference in the early 1990s, he did yeoman’s work setting the stage for the first Republican takeover of the House in 40 years. Pence’s chairmanship of the Conference from 2009 through 2011 helped channel tea party energy into effective governance while again helping Republicans retake a House majority. Conversely, when less experienced people (no need to list them all) ran the Conference, Republican fortunes floundered.
If a Republican team full of Trump sycophants can’t make room for a single Trump skeptic at the leadership table, not even someone superb at every other aspect of her job, it sends a message to Trump-skeptic suburbia that those not enamored of Trump are unwelcome. It’s a recipe for electoral disaster — not to mention morally reprehensible.
Cheney may be ousted Wednesday from her leadership role. She will still personify “leadership” far better than the entire top tier of the Republican Conference put together.
