Watching Republican performances in the U.S. House of Representatives, I am possessed by a fleeting desire to become one of them, so that I, too, may experience the liberating delights of never again feeling shame.
Exhibit A: This week, GOP House members expressed overwhelming concern about Joe Biden’s handling of the Chinese spy balloon, after they just spent four years genuflecting to the Russian spy balloon in the Oval Office.
The GOP capacity for shame was nowhere to be found last month, when a ceremony was held to honor 14 people who had defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Only one Republican attended, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of Pennsylvania. The others go about their work, evidently pleased with themselves as they intentionally disregarded the people who protected them.
Also last month, Republicans established the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of Government. It has but two discernable purposes, neither of them legitimate. First, because they can’t locate much in the way of wrongdoing by Democrats, the committee’s Republicans hope to manufacture at least an aura of Democratic wrongdoing. Their other purpose is to interfere with the work of Department of Justice Special Council Jack Smith, who is investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, including whether members of Congress were involved.
Apparently, several were. Why else would five squirmy Republican representatives have been so concerned about being prosecuted for their roles in the riot that they asked Donald Trump for pardons? Their requests were described in sworn testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who added that a sixth, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, inquired about a pardon but didn’t formally request one. He is the same Jim Jordan who now chairs the “Weaponization” committee.
House Republicans live with the identity-ambiguous member from New York, GOP Rep. George Santos, if that’s his real name. Former speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would have arranged a quick trip out the door and into obscurity for a similarly offending Democrat. Not so for new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Nearly as embarrassing is Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ala., who described the Jan. 6 rioters as little different from “tourists.” Last week, amid the nation’s ongoing mass shootings, he shamelessly handed out assault rifle lapel pins to his fellow Republican representatives.
As the GOP goes about setting new indoor records for shameful activity, their committee appointments are keeping them on course. McCarthy named Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to the Homeland Security Committee. The rock-headed Greene has suggested that no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11; that the Jan. 6 rioters should have “won;” that no children were killed during the Sandy Hook school shooting; that California wildfires were the work of Rothchild [read, “Jewish”] space lasers and that Pelosi should get a bullet to the head. When it comes to the capacity to feel guilt, her larder is empty.
McCarthy also placed Greene on the Government Oversight Committee. She began her service by claiming to have discovered that the Biden government sent $5 billion in COVID relief funds, for “Drag Queen Story Hour,” to a single elementary school. Which, in a school with 500 students, would amount to about $10 million per child, if it had been true. That statement might earn Greene’s old high school math teacher a picture on the back cover of “I Tried” magazine.
Joining her on the Government Oversight Committee is Rep. Paul Gosart, R-Ariz., who once shared cartoon images of himself murdering a fellow member of Congress posted on social media. He recently said of the Jan. 6 rioters, they, “deserve much more than an immediate pardon, but it would be a good start.” No wonder all his brothers and sisters have disowned him.
The Republican Party has become so twisted that its members in the U.S. House of Representatives would become paralyzed with shame if, by some miraculous intervention, they developed the capacity to experience it.
