MATT GAETZ: JUST WHAT NO ONE NEEDS IN CONGRESS

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Have you ever thought about the characteristics of a person who should not serve in the U.S. Congress?

Not a thought-line for everyday Americans.

But, for me, a political junkie, I have thought about this question.

And for the answer I look no farther than Matt Gaetz, an egotistical, self-absorbed member of the U.S. House from Florida who doesn’t give a whit about solid, middle-ground public policy.  [By the way, egotist and self-absorbed are synonyms, but so what – together, they provide the proper emphasis.]

There is no way Gaetz should be in any kind of leadership position, either in government or in the private sector.

Still, he persists and is making a name for himself these days by leading the House toward a government shutdown.

The good news today is that no less than Karl Rove, a long-time and reasonable Republican strategist, whether you agree with him or not, now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, agrees with me.  Or, perhaps I agree with him.

Here is what he wrote in a recent column for the Journal:

“A stupid, needless government shutdown looms.  The culprits aren’t Democrats but hard-right House Republicans who say they won’t agree to a bi-partisan continuing resolution to fund the government when the fiscal year ends at mid-night Saturday.

“They mean it.  Twice last week, five Republicans voted with Democrats to stop the House from taking up a Republican-drafted Defense Department appropriations bill.  It was an unprecedented breach of party discipline.

“This ‘Chaos Caucus’s’ leader, Florida’s reckless Representative Matt Gaetz, is practically giddy at the prospect of a shutdown.  Though he voted for the Pentagon funding bill to protect his Armed Services Committee seat, he is heading the opposition to a bi-partisan continuing resolution.

“Failure to enact such a stopgap measure this week would mean a shutdown, which Gaetz predicts in six or eight days will produce ‘maximum momentum on paradigm-changing’ pressure on Democrats to make deep spending cuts.”

Rove, accurately, calls this “blather.”

He says smart Democrats know that, when federal offices are shuttered, services curtailed, and the military goes without pay, voters generally blame Republicans.

Gaetz doesn’t care – about House chaos, what Democrats think, or the country’s economic status.

He cares only about himself, which is what narcissists do.

Rove writes that “the Chaos Caucus is willing to risk the GOP’s narrow majority because they believe that most Americans ‘won’t even miss it if the government is shut down temporarily.’”

Military members who don’t get their paychecks for their service will notice.  So will those who depend on government for sustenance in daily life.

There must be a better way to impose federal spending discipline.  But it would take officials better than Gaetz to do that deed.

More from Rove:

“Gaetz and his band of egotistical performance artists either are certain they’re the exception to history or don’t care.  Gaetz and his fellow travelers forget that conservative progress in Congress requires team effort and that the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good — especially when Democrats control the Senate and White House.”

Perhaps Gaetz is spending more time defending himself from various charges of sexual charades more emblematic of idiots in frat houses than in the U.S. House.  Or, he is courting favor from those on the far right as he hones a likely bid to run for governor in Florida.

Either way, I hope he is out of Congress soon so it will be possible – perhaps not likely, but still possible – to get somebody better than a buffoon such as Gaetz.