# I pit the GOP for considering the inarticulate Kevin McCarthy for Speaker **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 3, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354 "2015-10-03T11:15:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/21 "2015-10-03T23:01:30Z")
He sounds like a dyslexic reading words. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/22 "2015-10-03T23:18:58Z")
Fucking dumb piece of shit. Stupid fucking dumb Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/23 "2015-10-04T01:26:47Z")
As Rachel Maddow put it on Friday, this issue might not had gotten much attention outside Washingto[del]o[/del]n but in toon town Kevin McCarty’s feet were put over the coals for his ESL like speaking abilities and his gift to Hillary by admitting that the Benghazi hearings were this long because of partisan politics. > **[McCarthy hurt by blurt, draws challenger](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/mccarthy-hurt-by-blurt--draws-challenger-537744451607)** > > Rachel Maddow looks more closely as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's peculiar speaking, and notes a new report confirmed by NBC News that Congressman Jason Chaffetz will challenge McCarthy for the House speakership as McCarthy has suffered a... ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/24 "2015-10-04T01:55:11Z")
Well, he’s stupid enough to please the TP. I’m sure Clothahump and Magellan listen to him talking and nod. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/25 "2015-10-04T02:47:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden are famous for fumble-mouthing, but, my God, I wish we had more Senators like them! Kennedy was only fumble mouthed when drunk… hence the reputation 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/26 "2015-10-04T03:00:16Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > "The band, Elwood!!! The Band!! > > And here is a link to the original source, The Rachel Maddow Show : > > [Kevin McCarthy, speaker-apparent, exposes GOP Benghazi committee ploy](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/speaker-in-waiting-exposes-gop-benghazi-ploy-535721027734) The source would have been the station where the interview first appeared. Wasn’t that Faux News? Interesting that his mis-speaking hasn’t been more widely cited by other news outlets. Except for Maddow it’s almost a cover-up. > [@D\_Odds](#): > > This reminded me of a repeating conversation I had when I went into the Air Force. Someone, usually from the Mid-West but some Southerners too, would see my last name and say something like, “Is that an _Eye_talian name?” Before I would correct them that it was a Sicilian name _(I still remember, Grandma!)_, I would first tell them that there is no country pronounced _Eye_taly (or I might try to get them to name the country, which they would usually, if not always, pronounce correctly). More recently, Eye-Rack and Eye-Ran. I use those or Eye-talian when trying to be funny. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/27 "2015-10-04T04:16:44Z")
At some points in those clips, I thought the poor guy was stroking out. I feel for the guy because I have word salad issues myself, and it is embarrassing to hear yourself speaking incoherently. Which is why I would never run for public office–let alone Speaker of the House. What I don’t get is why he sounds that terrible when he’s clearly reading from notes. That means not even a teleprompter can help him. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/28 "2015-10-04T05:00:28Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > What I don’t get is why he sounds that terrible when he’s clearly reading from notes. That means not even a teleprompter can help him. yeah, that was kind of amusing ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/29 "2015-10-04T06:00:07Z")
Used to be, Republicans had a highly paid cadre of professional cynics advising them. A little prep work this could have gone over OK. A few well placed stories about the civic leader and family man who shreds his word salad. Hell, if they could sell Marlboro America on a guy who busts into tears over CBO reports… ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/30 "2015-10-04T11:42:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not to worry, He would be 2nd in line. Whoosh? Common parlance uses third, but if Obama is zero, then Biden is 1 and the speaker 2. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/31 "2015-10-04T11:48:14Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Whoosh? > > Common parlance uses third, but if Obama is zero, then Biden is 1 and the speaker 2. If so, then common parlance is wrong. Obama is already president; he’s not in line for anything. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/32 "2015-10-04T12:58:29Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > At some points in those clips, I thought the poor guy was stroking out. > > I feel for the guy because I have word salad issues myself, and it is embarrassing to hear yourself speaking incoherently. Which is why I would never run for public office–let alone Speaker of the House. > > What I don’t get is why he sounds that terrible when he’s clearly reading from notes. That means not even a teleprompter can help him. Yes - this and the complete absence of any recognition of things going awry. Most people, when they start struggling with garbled communication will either self-correct or will at least show some kind of recognition that something might have come out wrong. They’ll pause, or get a funny expression on their face, or stammer a bit. In my opinion, the thing that makes this guy seem so weird is the complete lack of any expressions or mannerisms like that. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/33 "2015-10-04T16:15:18Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > The source would have been the station where the interview first appeared. Wasn’t that Faux News? > > Interesting that his mis-speaking hasn’t been more widely cited by other news outlets. Except for Maddow it’s almost a cover-up. > More recently, Eye-Rack and Eye-Ran. > > I use those or Eye-talian when trying to be funny. I’ve always said Eye-ran and Eye-rack, going back to the seventies. That’s also how I a always heard it. I was highly amused when I heard people in the media saying Ee-rahn and Ee-rock many years later. And Kennedy must have been pretty much always drunk then because he always sounded like that. Agreed, one of the great Doonesburys ever was the verb one quoted above. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/34 "2015-10-04T19:26:57Z")
At the moment, I’d imagine that the GOP would prefer he’d [remained inarticulate](http://www.newsmax.com/Parker/mccarthy-hillary-clinton/2015/10/04/id/694612/): > [@](#): > > With Kevin McCarthy’s recent response to the simplest question about GOP accomplishments in Congress, from the friendliest interviewer, Sean Hannity, a GOPer could hope for, the future may as well be called Democrat. > > Here’s what McCarthy offered if you happened to be away exploring conspiracies about liquid water on Mars: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” he said. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable.” > > The consequences of McCarthy’s sleight of tongue can’t be overstated. It wasn’t just a Washington gaffe, when someone accidentally tells the truth. It was a self-inflicted, potentially fatal wound, not just to McCarthy but to Republicans more broadly, including those running for president. Coming from a certifiably conservative pundit, the last strikes me as a remarkable statement. And while I’m not as sanguine as Ms Parker as to the long-term effect of McCarthy’s inadvertent truthfulness — and his singularly ham-tongued attempt at retraction — it appears certain that he has indeed taken a good deal of momentum from Benghazigate/Benghaziscam and emailgate/emailscam. _Quelle dommage_. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/35 "2015-10-05T02:20:21Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > The source would have been the station where the interview first appeared. Wasn’t that Faux News? > > Interesting that his mis-speaking hasn’t been more widely cited by other news outlets. Except for Maddow it’s almost a cover-up. > More recently, Eye-Rack and Eye-Ran. > > I use those or Eye-talian when trying to be funny. Heh, you should meet my family. They pronounce Italy = Itly all the fucking time. It drives me crazy. Even my younger brothers. WTF? Where does that come from? And the It part is pronounced like it. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/36 "2015-10-06T09:45:16Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Don’t be so superficial. The real question is has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like? Always makes me chuckle. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/37 "2015-10-06T14:49:44Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > The source would have been the station where the interview first appeared. Wasn’t that Faux News? > > Interesting that his mis-speaking hasn’t been more widely cited by other news outlets. Except for Maddow it’s almost a cover-up. > More recently, Eye-Rack and Eye-Ran. > > I use those or Eye-talian when trying to be funny. But can I still pronounce Italy as EHT-all-lee like Sgt. “Big Toe” Hulka in\* Stripes\*? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/38 "2015-10-06T16:17:08Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > Heh, you should meet my family. They pronounce Italy = Itly all the fucking time. It drives me crazy. Even my younger brothers. WTF? Where does that come from? And the It part is pronounced like it. The vowel there is usually quite elided in English. So much so, that the [pronunciation](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/italy?s=t) in at least this dictionary doesn’t even include an explicit vowel sound there, just the “l.” I pronounce it something like “it’ll-ee.” ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/39 "2015-10-06T19:23:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Being an inarticulate doofus isn’t that much of a handicap in Congress. Now see here! Inarticulate doofusi deserve representation too! ---
**Author:** ![yawuntz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a5b964/32.png) [@yawuntz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yawuntz)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354/40 "2015-10-06T19:29:12Z")
That should be _doofi_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-gop-for-considering-the-inarticulate-kevin-mccarthy-for-speaker/733354.md?page=3)