Kevin McCarthy goes to hell
Excuse me if you’ve heard this one before. Just ahead of the 2010 midterms, Kevin McCarthy runs into Adam Schiff on a plane. Schiff opines that he thinks the Democrats will win. McCarthy insists it will be the Republicans. Later McCarthy is quoted in the press saying Adam Schiff privately told him he believed the Republicans were going to win. When Schiff confronts McCarthy about it, McCarthy says “Well, Adam, you know how it is.”
Oh, sorry, you thought I was going to tell you a joke? No, sadly, it was not a joke, it was just another in a long series of anecdotes about a pathological liar named Kevin McCarthy. The same man who tweeted in September “I never quit” just announced he’s going to resign his seat in the House of Representatives.
Wait, I’ve got another one for you. This one is from former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. On the day of the January 6th insurrection, McCarthy spoke with Pelosi on the phone. McCarthy agreed with her that Republicans and Democrats needed to come together in a resolution against political violence at this terrible time. He also agreed that he was going to oppose any opposition to continuing to count the electoral college vote.
After she got off the phone with McCarthy, someone else told her that they’d just spoken with Jim Jordan, and he’d told them the exact opposite, that McCarthy would oppose Democrats and oppose the count. Pelosi knew one of them was lying. I know, there’s not much to choose between Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan when it comes to telling lies. But in this particular case it turned out that McCarthy was the one doing the lying — of course.
That is going to be Kevin McCarthy’s legacy, the legacy of Kevin the liar. Sooner or later everyone who knows him hates him, even Republicans. Sooner or later, McCarthy will stab you in the back — or elbow you hard in the kidneys from behind and deny it later — even Republicans. If you’re around him long enough, sooner or later — usually sooner — McCarthy will lie to you.
McCarthy is a man who prefers a lie when the truth would do as well. Like Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy is a pathological liar.
Psychologists Drew Curtis and Christian Hart define pathological lying as “a persistent, pervasive, and often compulsive pattern of excessive lying behaviour that leads to clinically significant impairment of functioning in social, occupational, or other areas.” That’s Kevin. McCarthy’s pathological lying has actually interfered with his political career to the extent that he can no longer function even in the world of MAGA fanatics.
And for that reason McCarthy finally saw that he must resign. He even lies about that and blames the system instead. “It often seems,” McCarthy wrote recently in the Washington Post, “that the more Washington does, the worse America gets.”
Liars often use such vagaries and self-serving rationales when they lie. The real reason McCarthy is quitting is because he’s bitter about the fact that no one likes him and he can’t be Speaker any longer. So he’s decided to gather up his toys, go home and pout.
Of course, McCarthy knows his defection will hurt the Republican Party. He’s probably secretly glad about that. As with the “loss” of George Santos, Republicans will lose McCarthy’s vote, and that could prove significant. Matt Gaetz, who is currently on the chopping block as well, could also be ousted.
McCarthy will be replaced fairly quickly, in about 90 days. Santos will probably be replaced by a Democrat and, because Gaetz is in a state (Florida) that runs a full election cycle for special elections, it will take nine months to replace him. So just when Republicans cannot spare another loss, McCarthy goes and hands them another one. I’ll bet his timing is deliberate.
So on top of getting nothing done in Congress with the same majority that Nancy Pelosi had, not only did McCarthy get nothing useful done, he’s causing his party to lose even more of the slim majority they eked out in 2022. Much of this is thanks to feckless Kevin the liar, a man of no principles and fewer beliefs, who had his chance as Speaker to unite his party and he blew it.
Good riddance to Kevin McCarthy. If we ever hear from him again, here’s hoping it’s because he’s been indicted for his part in the shameful MAGA attempt to overthrow the American government. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.