Last night, Americans were treated to the longest lunar eclipse in 500 years. Watching it required a good deal of patience as the orb floated slowly across the sky, apparently unchanging from moment to moment. However, eventually, there was real progress and beauty, as the full moon trimmed down to a tiny fingernail sliver, its shaded face barely visible in reflected Earth-light, then brightened against the pitch black of the sky before being dimmed by the rising sun.
And at every stage, it was more lively, more interesting, and infinitely more attractive than the eight-hour-plus speech that GOP leader Kevin McCarthy delivered on the House floor overnight to delay the final House vote on the Build Back Better legislation.
Goaded by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ suggestion earlier in the day that Donald Trump should be named speaker if Republicans win the House in 2022 because McCarthy fails to provide the party with any leadership, the House minority leader attempted to free his inner Trump. The result was a speech where “rambling” would doesn’t begin to cover the incoherent and disconnected claims, stitched together by occasional arm waving and table-pounding designed to show that McCarthy is just as angry, vindictive, and nonsensical as Trump.
As Rep. Jaime Raskin reported mid-way through this event, McCarthy managed to speak for over four hours without producing “a single memorable phrase, original insight, or even a joke.” And then he did it for four more hours. Which makes it even more … is there a word that means something is remarkable for being absolutely unremarkable?
Given the “magic minute” to speak at any length desired, McCarthy set his sights on besting a record speech delivered by Nancy Pelosi in 2018 in which she spoke movingly and eloquently on the plight of “Dreamers” and the danger and stress they had been placed under by the anti-immigrant actions of Trump and the Republican Party.
Breaking that record gave the GOP a kind of instant fundraiser in the form of emails streaming out to watch “McCarthy beat Pelosi.” But if McCarthy had any goal other than showing he could stay upright for the same period that Pelosi didn’t just speak, but stayed focused on a single topic, it didn’t show. The whole episode reeked of Stunt Politics in which the “McCarthy blocks bill” headline in right-wing media was the entire goal. The content of McCarthy’s looping tirade might as well have been random words fished from a Bingo barrel.
And all of it will eventually come down to one thing:
As House reconvenes this morning for a final vote, sleep-deprived Republicans can pat themselves on the back for allowing America to start the day with the news that House Democrats have passed this bill.
The voting is beginning … now. McCarthy does not get another chance to speak.