Oh, yeah, I almost forgot…
Trey Gowdy
I almost ran off the road this morning when I heard someone on NPR saying that the crazies who ran John Boehner out of the House were wanting Trey Gowdy to be majority leader. Of the Unites States House of Representatives. And I don’t think they were joking.
Oh, I’m sure Mr. Gowdy is a fine fella, kind to children and dogs and so forth, but No. 2 man in the House?
Apparently, Boehner himself was also promoting this…
This is a guy who:
- Hasn’t even been in the House five years.
- Was elected over Bob Inglis, one of the finest, most principled people to be elected from South Carolina in a generation, and one of the most sincerely and ostentatiously conservative, because Inglis wasn’t right-wing enough in the Year of the Tea Party.
- Owes whatever national reputation he does possess entirely to chairing the House’s Benghazi sideshow. True, he’s in good company, in that Lindsey Graham also has a Benghazi obsession — but at least Graham is known for other stuff as well.
- Is not, lest you be confused, Curt Gowdy. That would be pretty cool. But wrong Gowdy.
And don’t even get me started on the haircut, which makes him look like a cross between Stan Laurel. and Oswald Cobblepot on “Gotham.” Not that that sort of thing should matter.
Anyway, to put it more mildly, I was surprised…
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OK, I’m calming down a bit now… breathing more evenly…
The thing that nearly drove me off the road this morning was that I could have sworn they said on the radio that they wanted Gowdy to be SPEAKER, so that really set me off.
Majority leader isn’t as crazy… and in fact, the more I think about it…
If both the lunatic fringe AND Boehner think Gowdy would be good in the job, maybe he could be a force who could help knit that troubled body back together.
Also, the fact that he didn’t WANT the thankless job indicates that he may be one of the sanest people in Washington.
So… I’m gonna kinda walk this post back a bit… It’s not quite as crazy an idea as I initially thought…
And sorry about the crack about his personal appearance, although the hair IS problematic…
I think you were a little dismissive, but I also think your take on the representative is spot on. He has been pretty vindictive, and seems to see his role as somewhere between hitman and spoiler. Definite anti-government (he would call it less government). There’s way more than enough nastiness in that institution already, and I can see how you almost wrecked when confronted with the thought of his steering it.
“Also, the fact that he didn’t WANT the thankless job indicates that he may be one of the sanest people in Washington.”
Ha! Made me think of this great Douglas Adams quote from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
“To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”
The man was truly gifted.
On our last day in London, I got up well before my wife to take a solo pilgrimage via the Tube out to Holloway, in Islington. I was mainly there as a Nick Hornby fan, of course, but a secondary motive was that I knew Adams had lived in Islington, which was an additional attraction. I wanted to see an area that could inspire two such geniuses.
And I arrived back at our hotel in Swiss Cottage just as the cab arrived to take us to the coach depot so we could take a charabanc trip to Oxford. Which I thought was perfect timing. My wife thought it somewhat less than perfect because she had had to do all the packing and call the cab, and truth be told, the taxi MAY have been waiting a moment or two when I got there.
So, as my wife might have said that day, people are a problem. Especially one of them…
he doesn’t want it because the 30-40 tea party types in the House won’t be happy with anyone.
Rumors abound that Gowdy doesn’t plan to run for reelection. His office issued a disclaimer saying he hasn’t made his intentions known yet.
http://wspa.com/2015/09/30/rep-trey-gowdy-addresses-retirement-rumors/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/where-will-gowdy-go-in-2016/article/2573082
That’s It! I was wracking my brain trying to figure out who that picture reminded me of. It is Penguin!
It was kinda fun when Gowdy got all petulant with Cecile Richards. He accused her of providing reasonable answers, which supposedly made the questioners seem unreasonable.
Judging by how long it has been since a Republichan lawyer has been Speaker of the House, I suspect there may be an unwritten admonishment connected with them. Lawyers vy for the spot now and then.
Of those vying currently, Kevin McCarthy and Daniel Webster are not lawyers unlike Pete Roskam.
Republichan lawyers usually receive very low percentages of House’s Speaker votes. Quite the opposite has been true for Democratich lawyers, and it has hardly been as infrequent for them to serve. One might guess such outcomes are planned in advance and the formality is for drama, as in Nancy Pelosi.