Ousted

 The Speaker is dead. Long live the speaker.

Okay. The Speaker in this particular version of politics today is Kevin "Kev" McCarthy. And he's not dead. Not in the traditional, physical sense. Professionally? That's another matter. The man who bent and stretched and clawed his way through fifteen attempts at getting enough votes to become the (checks notes) third most powerful person in the United States government. Those four days of whining and begging his fellow GOP members to put him over the top are not, historically speaking, a record of any sort. That distinction belongs to Representative Nathaniel Prentice Banks of Massachusetts who was only elected speaker after one hundred thirty-three rounds and some two months of voting. That was back in 1855. Mister Banks served as speaker for just under two years. He resigned to become governor of Massachusetts. 

Kevin McCarthy did not resign. Members of his own party voted him out. By essentially the same slim margin that got him voted in. His reign clocked in at just about nine months. There's probably some joke to be made here about "full term," but I will let others choose their own punch line. He is the first Speaker of the House to be removed from that office. "Ousted" was the verb that many news outlets preferred. 

Kevin McCarthy will not be resigning to take over the governorship of his home state of California. He won't be running in the election for a new Speaker of the House. Which leaves the door open to all sorts of possibilities. Currently we were all given a tiny lesson in Latin when Representative Patrick "Pat" McHenry was installed as speaker pro tempore, or "temporary speaker." When it was time to call for recess, he nearly broke his gavel. 

As Representative McCarthy starts updating his LinkedIn profile, the United States Congress begins another torturous path toward finding new leadership. A year away from the next election. With the clock ticking on the forty-five day extension for the Federal Budget they gave themselves to avoid a government shutdown. The very same leadership meltdown that brought the ouster of Speaker Kev. 

If things haven't become bizarre enough for all of us, a resolution is being tossed around to bring the serially indicted former game show host out of the courtroom long enough to be named Speaker of the House. And just like the blank looks I get when people ask me if somebody can serve as President from jail, I will tell you that there is nothing in our current rule book that says this plan to make the orange sack of protoplasm Speaker of the House cannot happen. Check your House of Representatives Bingo Card now!