By Jim Geraghty
Thursday, January 12, 2023
A lot of these insane narcissists who spend years telling
us how much they want the job of being an elected official are, in fact, not
all that interested in doing the job.
Former Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn may be one
of the most vivid and reprehensible examples of this phenomenon, as it appears
that once he lost the primary in his North Carolina reelection bid, he blew off
his duties. Cawthorn’s failure to turn over casework to his successor’s office
is getting the most attention this morning, but judging from a report last
November, he stopped doing anything related to casework long before his
term ended:
Carolina Journal called his Capitol
Hill office on Nov. 17 and was presented with a range of options in an
automated message. After hitting “1,” the phone rang for an extended period.
Eventually, an operator picked up, mumbled something, and redirected the call
to the office of Arizona U.S. Senator Kirsten [sic] Sinema, a Democrat.
Next, Carolina Journal called his
district office in Hendersonville and was met with another automated message.
The message said, “Due to our office beginning to close for the term, we are no
longer accepting new casework requests.”
Casework is a key part of a
congressman’s work. Constituents rely on their congressional representatives
for help with Social Security, veterans’ issues, passports, visas, Medicaid,
and a long list of other federal services.
Media and other congressional
offices have noticed this early departure. Danielle Battaglia, Capitol Hill
reporter for McClatchy, tweeted that despite Congress being in session,
Cawthorn’s office was stripped of its nameplate and furniture. Dan Keylin,
senior advisor in U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ office, R-NC, said the same has been
true for Cawthorn’s district offices as well.
Cawthorn kept collecting his paychecks, though.
Republican Chuck Edwards, who succeeded Cawthorn, spent
at least a month trying to get casework information from him. It sounds like
the former congressman skipped town and let all his calls go to voice mail:
But before leaving office and
moving out of state Cawthorn failed to pass on important information about
constituents seeking help, newly sworn-in Rep. Chuck Edwards said. Members of
Congress typically help those living in their districts with issues ranging
from difficulty getting Social Security checks to problems with veterans’
benefits. When they leave office they pass along unfinished cases so the next
representative can continue the assistance. House rules say the deadline to
hand over the casework date was Dec. 23, according to a Jan. 9 release from
Edwards.
“The office of former Congressman
Madison Cawthorn did not transfer official constituent casework, which is
standard practice for any legislative transition,” the release said. “Due to this lack of information,
Congressman Edwards and his staff have no way of knowing which constituents had
ongoing casework or other outstanding federal issues. Repeated attempts to
reach Congressman Cawthorn and his staff were made over the past month, but no
response or action was provided.”
“I ran on the issue of providing
the best constituent service possible for the people of Western North Carolina.
I ask that anyone with any pending casework contact my office immediately. In
addition,” Edwards said, “I would like to ensure that our veterans, the
elderly, the infirm and others who need help get the full benefit of the
services they are entitled to.”
In a demonstration that God has a sense of humor,
Cawthorn’s final floor address in the House was about the
importance of taking responsibility and continuing to work hard through
difficult times:
Madam Speaker, it used to be a rite
of passage in this country for young men to be punched in the face when they
did something stupid. Our Nation used to believe that there was strength and
purpose in taking the hits, learning from your mistakes, and growing through
the adversity.
America is weak. Her sons are
sickly and her daughters are decrepit. Our country now faces the consequences
of enabling a participation trophy society.
We are no longer the United States.
We have become a nanny state. Our young men are taught that weakness is a
strength, that delicacy is desirable, and that being a soft metrosexual is more
valuable than training the mind, body, and soul.
Social media has weakened us,
siphoning our men of their will to fight, to rise in a noble manner, square
their jaws, and charge once more into the breach of light to defend what they
love.
Hey, pal, none of those words mean anything when you’re
blowing off parts of the job you volunteered to do. Congressman Quitter Tantrum
doesn’t get to call anybody else insufficiently masculine. Even
elementary-school kids eventually recognize they have to do their homework, even
if they don’t want to do it.
Also note the irony of that complaint about social media,
coming from the guy who wrote
to his colleagues back in 2021, “I have built my staff around comms
[communications] rather than legislation.” The
guy’s still on Instagram, by the way.
Last week in the Washington Post, I contended
that the U.S. political system really started to go down the wrong path when
the worlds of politics and entertainment, once only intermittently overlapping,
became intertwined, pointing to MTV’s “Rock the Vote” campaign and John F.
Kennedy Jr.’s George magazine as two key mileposts on that
journey.
Cawthorn didn’t really want to be a congressman; he
wanted to be a star. Elected office is less fun than it looks on television,
and it’s nothing like The West Wing. Serving as a member of
Congress, and doing the job well, means long hours out of the spotlight,
helping constituents figure out why their Social Security or VA benefits didn’t
arrive, etc. Americans interact with the federal government in thousands of
different ways, and often run into problems, bureaucratic snafus, headaches,
and all kinds of glitches. Their member of Congress is supposed to be their
representative, and not just on the House floor and in committees. A letter
from a congressman’s office inquiring about some delay or missing paperwork can
often get the gears of government turning more quickly.
But that kind of work is boring and unglamorous, so
Madison Cawthorn just didn’t do it.
The Slow-Band-Aid-Removal Method of Helping Ukraine
The debate about how much aid the U.S. should send to
Ukraine often skips past a strange and likely counterproductive pattern in the
Biden administration’s decision-making. Biden and his team will often say
things like, “The United States is committed to ensuring that the brave
Ukrainian people can continue to defend their country against Russian
aggression as long as it takes.” And then President Zelensky will ask for a
long list of weapons systems, and the Biden response will be, “We will send you
A and B, but not C and D.” And then a few months later, the Biden team will
conclude they should send C and D.
Have you noticed that the possibility of sending a
particular U.S. weapons system to Ukraine is usually considered unwise,
unhelpful, and even escalatory and dangerous . . . right up until the moment
the Biden administration changes its mind? And then all of a sudden, sending
those weapons is absolutely the right thing to do?
We first saw this in the back-and-forth about sending
Ukraine some of the MiG-29s that our NATO partners had. Poland was up for it,
and the Biden administration initially approved it and then reversed its
position and opposed the transfer. Eventually, the U.S. approved the sale of some old MiG-29s not in flying
condition to be stripped for spare parts. Last month, Slovakia announced it
was ready to send Ukraine its eleven remaining MiGs. (The Slovak Air
Force is shifting over to F-16s.)
The Biden administration was opposed to sending a Patriot
missile battery to Ukraine, concluding that it would take too long to train
Ukrainian personnel to use the systems . . . until the Russian missile attacks
on cities intensified and the Biden team apparently changed their minds.
Throughout much of last year, Biden resisted sending Ukraine missiles that could reach into Russia. “We’re
not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” he
told reporters in May. But Ukraine is using drones — apparently not American-made — to attack targets
deep in Russian territory, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Weapons systems are somewhat fungible; if you’re using one new set of weapons
from the U.S. in one place, it frees up other weapons to use elsewhere. The
U.S. can’t stop Ukraine from striking targets in Russia if the Ukrainians
determine that the best way to win the war is by striking targets in Russia.
Now the U.S. is sending Ukraine Bradley fighting vehicles. I’m sure the
Ukrainian army would have liked to get their hands on these armored vehicles at
any point in the past eleven months. Apparently sending them would have been
escalatory . . . right up until the minute it wasn’t escalatory.
If you want to help these guys, then help these guys.
Stop doing it piecemeal. Stop sending arms over in dribs and drabs.
Put another way: Is there any way that Ukraine wins the
war without ever doing something that Vladimir Putin would see as “escalatory”?
Keep in mind that he views the existence of an independent Ukraine as an
outrageous, unacceptable provocation.
ADDENDUM: Finally, with 89-year-old California senator
Dianne Feinstein expected to retire, the state has a chance for some new,
young, bold representation in the chamber: Representative Barbara Lee, who will
turn 77 later this year, has announced she’s running for the seat. Lee has been
in elected office for only 32 years.
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