After standing by and twiddling their thumbs as Donald Trump declared neo-Nazis "very fine people," bragged about his pussy-grabbing prowess, heaped praise upon a GOP lawmaker for assaulting a reporter, and invited rapper Kanye West into the Oval Office for a televised expletive-laden rant, Republicans suddenly lurched into action Friday over a freshman Michigan Democrat hurling the exact same f-bomb Kanye did—only not in the Oval Office with a GOP president flashing his pearly whites for the cameras.
GOP lawmakers rediscovered their moralistic mojo following a Thursday-night event at which newly sworn-in Rep. Rashida Tlaib recounted telling her son that, ultimately, bullies don't win, "Because we’re gonna go in there and impeach the motherfucker.”
Uh-oh. Trump got immediately defensive, while House Republicans—now effectively useless blowhards since they're in the minority—got immediately righteous.
New House GOP chair Liz Cheney condemned Tlaib's use of "foul language," never mind that time her daddy, then-Vice President Dick Cheney, told Sen. Patrick Leahy to "go fuck yourself" on the Senate floor. (Ol' Dick later recalled the 2004 moment as "sort of the best thing I ever did.” A pretty sad but perhaps true rendering of his record.)
GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also jumped on the righteous-outrage bandwagon, hailing members of his own caucus in the last Congress for signing on to some civility resolution when they were in the majority. A reporter quickly called B.S. on that.
“The president, not too long ago, referred to a woman as ‘horse face,'” he pointed out. “Who within your caucus called out the president for that type of language?”
“I think a lot of them did,” McCarthy said, without naming a single GOP lawmaker who actually did so.
Before fielding any more "horse face" inquiries, the minority leader quickly turned away from the mics.
Run, don’t walk, McCarthy! There's just no claiming the moral high ground after you guys stood by and condoned every single damn disgraceful, reckless, and often times inhumane action Trump has taken as president. You built that, McCarthy; deal with it.
As for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she told MSNBC's Joy Reid Friday that she wasn't in the "censorship business." “I don’t like that language, I’m not going to use that language,” Pelosi said, “but I don’t establish language standards for my colleagues and I don’t think it’s anything worse than the President has said.” Amen.