The Wall Street Journal editorial page nailed it:
“This really is the cartoon Congress.”
And yet the Democrats’ decision to censure Congressman Paul Gosar — with backing from just two anti-Trump Republicans — is about so much more than an animated video.
It’s about an anything-goes culture on the Hill in which conduct that would get any office worker fired — posting a video showing him killing a colleague — is deemed acceptable by one side.
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It’s about open hostility and mistrust between the two parties in the House, and using any available weapon, procedural or otherwise, to wound the opposition.
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 17: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) walks on to a subway to the U.S. Capitol Building on November 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
((Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images))
And it’s about the perpetual promise of payback, with Kevin McCarthy flatly declaring that his party will exact revenge from the Democrats if, as seems overwhelmingly likely, the GOP wins the House next year.
“Mr. Gosar, who is 63 years old but acts like a teenager on TikTok, deserves ridicule more than censure, which should be reserved for serious offenses,” the Journal says.
I’m not in the camp of this is just a joke. Even an anime killing sends a message, especially 10 months after members of Congress were actually in danger of being killed in their own marble workplace. For a White lawmaker to depict the cartoonish slaying of a woman of color, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is also troubling, though I guess he evened the scales by also having his character stab President Biden.
As for those, including the Journal, who believe the Democrats took things too far, I’d suggest that things might have been different if Gosar had apologized — he never did — and if the GOP leadership had at least scolded him. Instead, there was radio silence, until Kevin McCarthy…
Source : foxnews
