Kevin McCarthy hasn’t had a great 2023. It started badly: He nabbed his coveted Speaker of the House gig, but only after a humiliating 15 votes (and a near-fight involving his main tormentor, Matt Gaetz). His reward: trying to control a bunch of MAGA brats who are only in Congress to sow chaos. McCarthy’s reign came to an inglorious end in October, when he became the first House Speaker to be removed in the chamber’s 234 years. How to top that? By quitting.
And how to top that? Being dragged on Twitter/X’s Community Notes.
Absolutely savage community note pic.twitter.com/b4RH06eywA
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) December 6, 2023
On Wednesday, mere hours after McCarthy bravely announced his plan to ditch Congress at the end of the year, a Community Note was attached to an old tweet McCarthy dropped on Sept. 19, about two weeks before he got booted from his illustrious job. McCarthy captioned it “I never quit,” and attached was a video of him vowing to stay in office while speaking to reporters.
“I never quit,” McCarthy said in the video. “I’m not working for some member sitting in my conference. I’m working for this country and I’m never going to give up on the American people. I’m going to work every day. And you know what? If I come up short today, I’m going to work harder tomorrow. That’s what I do.”
Some two-and-a-half months later McCarthy would quit. That prompted Twitter/X folks to add a little annotation, which read, “He just quit.”
The note was eventually removed, as that’s how things roll under Elon Musk’s leadership. But not before many screengrabbed it for posterity.
Maybe McCarthy is making the right move. Perhaps, by leaving his longtime workspace, where he could please neither the old guard nor the MAGA saboteurs, he’s not really the glutton for punishment he seemed to be. But surely he’ll get struck in the kidneys a few more times before his tenure ends in but a few weeks.
(Via Mediaite)