Gaetz & Co: A Tale as Old as Time – WSJ

Give Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and his crew of slang-whangers their due: They can spin with the best of them. There they nobly stood Tuesday on the House floor side by side with Democrats to explain that they alone were real conservatives; they alone cared about regular order and spending and the border; they alone had the courage to hold Mr. McCarthy to his promises. So slick was this performance that they alone were then able to march out of the chamber and raise millions of dollars off it.

That those claims are hokum is obvious to anyone who tuned in the past 11 months, rather than only for the final speechifying. It s worse than hokum, given that many of the offenses the rebels cited as grounds for deposing Mr. McCarthy were of their own making. How dare Mr. McCarthy fail to pass all 12 House spending bills by Sept. 30? How dare he then go to Democrats to get the votes to keep the government open?

The insurgents engineered that outcome. Last November a newly elected GOP majority was raring to go to work on reform and oversight. It instead remained in paralysis unable to elect committee chairmen, hire staff or make plans all through November and December. Many of this week s rebels self-labeled even back then as the Never Kevin movement refused to provide Mr. McCarthy the final speaker votes, instead throwing in behind a vanity run by Rep. Andy Biggs. They dragged out the process even after Congress convened in January, piling up demands and ultimately requiring 15 ballots to elect a speaker.

via www.wsj.com

Kimberly Strassel.