# Kevin McCarthy's Terrible Horrible No Good Day **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 22, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269 "2022-04-22T17:58:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/41 "2022-04-27T20:44:42Z")
My mistake. @Sage_Rat 's secret dirt conspiracy theory is not a reasonable hypothesis. That Kevin McCarthy is a self serving opportunist is more than reasonable. It’s an established fact. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/42 "2022-04-27T21:06:12Z")
Apparently McCarthy got a standing ovation after his explanation during the House Republican Caucus meeting today. Looks like this isn’t going to cause him any real political damage. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/43 "2022-04-27T21:09:55Z")
Maybe folks on the other side of the aisle should start praising him for having the right thoughts (even tho he did not see them through). Imagine if Pelosi and Schumer started singing his praises - even if they were trolling - I am sure there would be a reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/44 "2022-04-27T23:44:26Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > @Sage_Rat 's secret dirt conspiracy theory is not a reasonable hypothesis. > > That Kevin McCarthy is a self serving opportunist is more than reasonable. It’s an established fact. I would personally classify a conspiracy theory as a theory where: 1. There is no evidence. 2. A large group of people would all have had to have been very good at keeping secret. 3. Said large group has no motive to keep the secret and no known mechanism for being kept quiet. If one were to posit, for example, that the Italian mafia is running drugs into the USA, that would not be a conspiracy theory because it’s a criminal organization, the individuals would directly profit on drug sales, and the group is documented as killing snitches. We might plausibly believe that the members would keep a secret and do so faithfully, despite being a large organization. If you posit that the scientific community is conspiring to kill people via vaccines, that doesn’t work. Bioscientists are people who went into science to help people, they work in private and public fields across different nations - in competition with one another - and they’re in high demand so they probably aren’t all that scared about switching employers. It’s a conspiracy theory. If we want to say that a conspiracy theory is simply a theory which currently has no evidence then, functionally, we’re both giving conspiracy theories. Neither of us have any evidence that McCarthy saw a poll, considered the polls, or anything along those lines. We can establish that McCarthy is consciously dishonest but, from just that, we could just as reasonably infer that he’s a great hero who - like a spy - uses falsehoods to achieve goodness in the world. He uses lies and ingratiation to get in with influential people - like Trump - and steer them towards better paths. If it’s just as likely - from the facts - that he’s an unsung hero and we’re both supposing him to be a villain (of varying levels) then, fundamentally, there’s not a big difference between the theories so far as conspiratoriality goes. But I don’t know that I could get behind saying that a lack of evidence is sufficient to call something a conspiracy theory. In both cases, we’re saying that known scumbags might have behaved like scumbags. The exact mechanics, be as they may, aren’t what might call a huge stretch. Would a politician turn a 180 on a poll? We have a lot of evidence to support this. Would Trump record someone he was talking to, to get dirt on them? Again, we have lots of evidence of this. So we’re purely dealing with the question of whether McCarthy would have gotten involved in some shady financing scheme (e.g. the Trump inauguration fund) or fraudulent effort (e.g. Build the Wall) or steered clear of all of it. I don’t know, but I’m not aware of anything about McCarthy to make me think he’s the sort of “boyscout” that Paul Ryan was. Ryan wasn’t willing to participate in whatever happenings Trump was trying to involve the Republican House leadership in, and so he left. McCarthy didn’t follow him and seems to have had a perfectly good relationship with Trump. I don’t see any reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now, that said, I’ve gone back through the timeline and it looks like McCarthy hedged a little bit in favor of Trump on January 13th - saying that they’d had a call to discuss things - but overall he was still was opposed to Trump and being very clear about supporting Biden and the validity of the vote results; the first poll that said the Republicans were still in Trump’s pocket came in on the 15th; and McCarthy seems to have flipped on the 21st or thereabouts, with no indication of any conversation with Trump since the 13th. Your theory seems stronger. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/45 "2022-04-28T15:34:10Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Your theory seems stronger. Yeah. An accurate description of what actually happened, pretty much in plain sight, is a “stronger theory” than the plot of a poorly written political thriller. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/46 "2022-04-28T16:15:48Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > Yeah. An accurate description of what actually happened, pretty much in plain sight, is a “stronger theory” than the plot of a poorly written political thriller. You would have to explain. Which of these do you believe is unrealistic? 1. Trump would record people. 2. McCarthy might have been involved in one of Trump’s illegal ventures like the Build the Wall Fund or the Trump Inauguration party. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/47 "2022-04-28T17:01:33Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > a/k/a: there’s just no bottom. We’ll have to wait until police find a dead man in the middle of Fifth Avenue. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/48 "2022-04-28T17:06:07Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > You would have to explain. Which of these do you believe is unrealistic? I’m not going to confine myself to these little boxes you have constructed. The following, however, is ridiculous… > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I can’t imagine anything that Trump would have had to offer the guy to have produced such a turnaround, after almost getting McCarthy killed, in terms of things like promising him greater political success, financial backers, money, etc. It really narrows it down to blackmail material. > > I don’t know what Trump has on McCarthy but we can be fairly confident that McCarthy already told Trump what he was thinking and then Trump turned around and showed him a tape - and that was that. You’re ignoring things that happened in plain sight and that’s leading you down some very silly paths. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/49 "2022-04-28T17:15:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > McCarthy might have been involved in one of Trump’s illegal ventures like the Build the Wall Fund or the Trump Inauguration party. Or worse. My completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is that they invite some of these guys to a little shindig, get them drunk or more, then introduce them to one of Maxwell’s young guests. The next day, they wake up, ask, “What happened last night? Ow my head!” To which they are shown the photos of what happened last night, and given instructions to follow if they want to keep those out of public view. How much credence do I give that? Not a whole lot, but at the same time, I wouldn’t find myself surprised at all if a story broke following along similar lines. When the whole hookers and blow Cawthorne story was coming out, I was wondering if that was the direction it would go. It is more likely, though much more depressing, that these are just shitty people doing shitty things out of their desire to do shitty things than they are being coerced into doing shitty things. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/50 "2022-04-28T17:24:13Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > You’re ignoring things that happened in plain sight and that’s leading you down some very silly paths. I had the order of events wrong - perhaps I saw news reports out of order, I don’t know. Having those in the correct order changed the outcome. If I refused to change and insisted that my reality was correct despite it going against the evidence then you might have some cause to be annoyed. And, likewise, if I had suggested that aliens were mind controlling McCarthy or something ridiculous like that, you might have a fair complaint. But, assuming the other order of events where McCarthy changes direction before any polls come out, I fail to see how the read is “silly” because, again, which of these is unrealistic? 1. Trump would record people. 2. McCarthy might have been involved in one of Trump’s illegal ventures like the Build the Wall Fund or the Trump Inauguration party. I appreciate trying to push people away from making inferences that don’t follow from the evidence and I think that it _can_ be fair to call people silly when they’re being silly, to bring their attention. But let’s imagine that a witness saw a toy gun and believed it was a real gun. There’s undeniable evidence, now, that it was a toy gun and you’ve demonstrated that to the witness. If the witness held to the position that it was a real gun, sure, pushing on them to be reasonable makes sense. But if they’re quite willing to accept that they simply got the wrong impression - back when they witnessed the event - and there’s really no reason for them to have been aware that the gun was a toy at the time - it was black, they saw it from a distance, etc. - then what value is there in continuing to press that they were an idiot for mis-seeing it at the time? They weren’t an idiot. It really did just look like a real gun. If you’re at that point and you’re harassing the witness for having been wrong, in the past, when it was reasonable for them to get it wrong - then I fail to see that it’s the witness who is misbehaving. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/51 "2022-04-28T20:57:42Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > a/k/a: there’s just no bottom. The deepest, darkest part of the ocean is the MAGA Trench. My hypothesis is that if you took a submersible and tried to reach the bottom, you’d pass all the way through the Earth and surface somewhere in Russia. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/52 "2023-12-06T23:02:56Z")
Awww. He’s quitting. Not even going to finish out his term. Just shows what kind of a stand-up guy he is. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2023, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/53 "2023-12-07T01:09:42Z")
You mean like this guy? [![](https://cdn.bannerbuzz.com/media/catalog/product/resize/650/r/e/red-inflatable-tube-man-4.jpg) ](https://cdn.bannerbuzz.com/media/catalog/product/resize/650/r/e/red-inflatable-tube-man-4.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2023, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/54 "2023-12-08T12:57:46Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > My completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is that they invite some of these guys to a little shindig, get them drunk or more, then introduce them to one of Maxwell’s young guests. > > The next day, they wake up, ask, “What happened last night? Ow my head!” To which they are shown the photos of what happened last night, and given instructions to follow if they want to keep those out of public view. Does trump have his own Tom Hagen who can fly in and offer bland reassurances? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/55 "2023-12-09T01:29:50Z")
According to the following article its up to governor Newsom to decide whether to call a special election or to keep the deeply red district seat vacant, I know which way I’m hoping for. > **[McCarthy resignation sets off mad scramble](https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/12/kevin-mccarthy-resignation/)** > > Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield announces he will resign after fellow Republicans booted him as House speaker. Who might replace him? If he decides not to and if the people of Santos’s district are so fed up with him that the elect a Democrat, both reasonable assumptions, then this cuts down the Republican lead to 6. Good luck keeping them in line Mr. Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/56 "2023-12-09T02:40:36Z")
That’s interesting. While most states allow a vacancy to go unfilled if it occurs close to the end of the term, I’m surprised California law would allow a seat to sit vacant for an entire half of a Congressional term. While I understand the impulse for leaving it vacant, I can’t support leaving the people of the 20th District without a representative in Congress for over a year. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/57 "2023-12-09T03:23:43Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > Awww. He’s quitting. Not even going to finish out his term. Just shows what kind of a stand-up guy he is. I can’t blame him too much for that, based on what [Beau of the Fifth Column](https://youtu.be/4V4fSpAy10I) said. He threatened to leave (taking his fundraising skills with him) if the House didn’t do anything to punish the MAGA 8. Now he’s going through with it. If he’d had an ounce of that backbone while still Speaker, he wouldn’t be in this position. But he spent his entire Speakership catering to them rather than the smallest bit of crossing the aisle to make them irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/58 "2023-12-09T04:10:04Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > While I understand the impulse for leaving it vacant, I can’t support leaving the people of the 20th District without a representative in Congress for over a year. If it helps, try to think of it like a seat on the Supreme Court. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/59 "2023-12-10T21:55:07Z")
Yowsa! Since the 20th District saw fit to elect McCraven, they should understand that they need a time-out. Dan ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269/60 "2023-12-10T23:18:14Z")
It’s from the Sarah Palin playbook: Loser _and_ quitter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-mccarthys-terrible-horrible-no-good-day/963269.md?page=4)