I try not to indulge in schadenfreude very often. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, and we don’t know what someone is really going through nor what led him to make the life choices that ruined him. If you take too much pleasure in the misery of others, it corrupts your very soul.
But…
As with alcohol or cigars or hot fudge sundaes from the Costco food court, once in a while the occasion just calls for it. Specifically, when a person who should know better is finally suffering some consequences for bad decisions made for the most cynical of reasons.
For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans kept the Speaker's chair of the U.S. House sitting empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed again and again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough Republican votes to seize the chamber's gavel.
By nightfall, despite raucous protests from Democrats, Republicans voted to adjourn and return Friday at noon to try again.
Pressure was building as McCarthy lost seventh, eighth and then historic ninth and 10th rounds of voting, surpassing the number it took the last time this happened, 100 years ago, in a prolonged fight to choose a Speaker in a disputed election. The House then moved onto an 11th round, which McCarthy proceeded to lose again.
With McCarthy's supporters and foes locked in stalemate, the House could not formally open for the new session of Congress. And feelings of boredom, desperation and annoyance seemed increasingly evident.
One McCarthy critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, even cast his votes in two rounds for Donald Trump, a symbolic but pointed sign of the broader divisions over the Republican Party's future. Then he went further, moving the day from protest toward the absurd in formally nominating the former president to be House Speaker in the 11th vote.
Like I said, we all make mistakes. I am all in favor of giving people off-ramps to see the error of their ways and to hopefully go forth and sin no more.
But some people pass by dozens of off-ramps and sometimes get ready to turn off, only to swerve back into the fast lane on the autobahn of stupidity.
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