If At First You Don't Succeed...

There is an axiom that says, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." 

There is a corollary to that axiom that goes, "If you try, try again and still don't succeed, stop. You're just making a damn fool of yourself." 

So on that note...

Last week made for some fun political theater. With Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy figures hey, it's his turn to be Speaker of the House, right? 

And he gets it. On the 15th vote in the wee hours of Saturday morning.    

Over the course of several days, multiple votes were taken and multiple times Kevin McCarthy kept losing. 

Various news pundits and late night comedians were having field day with this political misadventure, describing it as "humiliating".  Well, as with most things these days with modern Republicans, I think something is only "humiliating" if one has a sense of shame. 

No one ever accused Kevin McCarthy of having a sense of shame. 

Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try again.

So what was the hub-bub, bub? Why all this hassle for the Republican Party to get behind this hard right Trump loving, Democrat hating guy? 

Apparently to some, he was not hard enough right, could love Trump more and hate Democrats more?  

Two of the loudest and most persistent voices in the "anybody but McCarthy" movement were Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.), two of Donald Trump's biggest boosters.

Even though Donald Trump was telling anyone who would listen to vote for Kevin McCarthy. Why? Besides McCarthy's toxic levels of toadying for Trump, the whole debacle of failed vote after failed vote looks bad on TV.

Li'l Donnie hates it when things look bad on TV.  

But the fights continued as the days wore on. 

Oh, that's an interesting phrase: the days wore on. Let me say it again: the days wore on. 

Eventually, McCarthy got his much longed for prize with a 15th vote that occurred very very early Saturday morning. 

Leading up to the 15th vote, things got really squirrelly around the 14th vote when a fight nearly broke out.  

McCarthy thought he had the speakership finally locked up with the 14th vote until Matt Gaetz at the last minute scuttled McCarthy's shot at victory by one vote.   

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) had to be physically restrained by another lawmaker from slugging Matt Gaetz.

Look, who hasn't wanted to pop Gaetz one in his smug, sex trafficking face? 

The gang was ready to adjourn and try again on Monday until Gaetz took a call from Donald Trump who apparently told Gaetz to stop fucking around already.

Well, that did the trick... sort of. Matt Gaetz still could not bring himself to voting "yes" for Kevin McCarthy but he did change his vote from "no" to "present" which was enough to do the trick.  

So Kevin McCarthy is now the Speaker of the the House of Representatives. 

Yay? 

Well, probably not. Having given away so much to get the rest of the House to sleep with him (1 concession was a new rule that allows only 1 member to request a vote of no confidence to remove the Speaker), he has the respect of no one. 

The far right wing lunatic fringe headed by loonies like Gaetz and Boebert are running the asylum and brought the government to a standstill over the relatively benign act of electing a speaker. 

We can only expect more chaos to come.