The ongoing effort to elevate the worst human beings the nation can scrounge up into higher and higher Republican leadership positions
continues apace.
Congressman Steve Scalise (R-Metairie) could gain more clout for Louisiana in the U.S. House. He says he plans to run for majority leader in the current shakeup of House leadership.
Rep. Steve Scalise is the House Republican now infamous for introducing himself to a Louisiana political reporter as "
David Duke without the baggage" and for
speaking at a meeting of Duke's own white supremacist group in 2002. He's also currently the House Majority Whip, apparently because Republicans just weren't able to muster up any among their ranks whose history
didn't include cozying up to infamous racists and hate groups.
All right, does Mr. David Duke Without The Baggage have a shot? It doesn't seem likely, with establishment Republicans seemingly coalescing around Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) for the position—one indication of how raw those past Scalise revelations still are might be that news story above, which spends one paragraph breaking the news he'll be running for majority leader and the rest of the story on his attempts to distance himself from his undeniable racist-pandering past. But House Republicans are at the moment notably insane, so ya spin the wheel and ya take your chances.
Welcome to the post-John Boehner House Republican Party. This giant fight between "establishment" hard-right Republicans and "tea party" hard-hard-right Republicans is how things are going to be going for the foreseeable future. No, I don't know how they'll manage to keep the government running either. Or whether, after the dust settles on these leadership fights, they'll even try.