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The It-Didnt-Start-With-Trump element of the Republican recalcitrance on a proposed bipartisan (Gawd!) commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection is to recall that George W. Bush did all he could to derail the 9/11 commission that everyone now pretends to adore, and that C-Plus Augustus refused to testify under oath to that commission, and wouldnt even sit for an unrecorded interview except in the White House with Dick Cheney, father of St. Liz of the Holy Soundbite, sitting next to him working the levers. And lets not even get into the government-wide stonewalling of the Iran-Contra investigations before that, and lets also remember that there were 33 investigations into Benghazi, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI!

However, when Mitch McConnell came out on Tuesday as the devious reptile hes always been, and announced that he was joining House Republican honcho Kevin McCarthy over in Cowards Corner, the difference was an order of magnitude. These guys were shirking their constitutional obligation and abandoning their moral compasses because a) they lead a party that is very likely complicit in the events, and b) theyre doing so to cover for a crook and a liar whos in so many crosshairs he looks like Bonnie and Clyde at the end of that movie.

Mitch, my dude, this isnt a job for grown-ups. And let us all wave farewell to Rep. John Katko, the Republican co-sponsor of the bipartisan commission proposal, as he disappears forever under a bus.

Later Wednesday afternoon, debate in the House began on the resolution establishing the commission. The overarching impressions were that, in the debate, the Democrats led with age and the Republicans led with crazy. The first three speakers in defense of the resolutionNancy Pelosi, Bennie Thompson, and Steny Hoyerare a combined 235 years old. The Republican side led off with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louis Gohmert, and some guy from North Carolina named Sam Bishop, who wanted to make sure everybody knew that what happened on January 6.

Personally, I think the passel of elderly Communist inebriates who tried to overthrow future Pizza Hut spokesman Mikhail Gorbachev back in August of 1991 are still the gold standard for insurrectionist clownery. (They got faced down by Boris Yeltsin, reportedly because, against all possible odds, some of them were drunker than Yeltsin was.) That, however, is beside the point. I would draw your attention to that last sentence in which John Katko returns to his place under the wheels.

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Watching Katko straddle the crazy to get the resolution he co-sponsored passed made you fear for every hamstring the man owns. Speaker after speaker tried to find polite ways to call Katko either a rube or a sucker. Meanwhile, the Democrats, in the person of co-sponsor Thompson, seem convinced that the fact that the resolution is bipartisan has some ultimate legislative salience in the Congress, and some ultimate political salience in the country, which is something I doubt profoundly. People dont give a fck about bipartisanship. Its neither a dealmaker nor a dealbreaker. Its a green-room amenity, like sodas and a crudit plate. Thankfully, Rep. Tim Ryan showed up to inveigh against the futility of it all.

To which Katko responded in his best hall-monitor voice that things were getting impermissibly partisan and emotional. Because, when you come right down to it, John Katko is a Republican, too. At loose moments, he let that slip through. For example, the regular GOP stance on the commission is that it ought to investigate the disturbances last summer following the murder of George Floyd. (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ranted about them in her one minute of debate time.) But Katko tried another tack.

This is a matter of comparing apples and salamanders. The 2017 episode was the work of one man, James Hodgkinson, and he was killed by the officers at the scene. There was a Secret Service investigation almost immediately after the shooting. As far as I know, there havent even been rumors of other people involved in the shooting. Hodgkinson was vocal in his dislike of Republicans and clearly came to the ballfield to attack them that morning, but he did it all on his own. An awful event, certainly, but if Katko thinks a 1/6 commission should examine it, then hes as invested in delay and deflection as Greene is.

And, unless Mitch McConnell is taken off to glory and replaced by Zombie Paul Douglas, this thing is as dead as Kelseys nuts in the Senate anyway. Ten Republicans would have to vote for it and, well, no. Its time for Democrats simply to put together a select committee of their own, issue subpoenas, and let the chips fall.

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Republicans Threw Their Own Guy Deep Under the Bus to Avoid a January 6 Commission - Esquire