Clumsy Kevin

People forget that it wasn’t really the Freedom Caucus that knocked Kevin McCarthy out of contention for Speaker in 2015. They were part of it. But what did him in was that members from the rest of the caucus didn’t think he was ready. As the Speakership was hanging in the balance in 2015, he gave an interview in which he said that the whole point of the Benghazi hearings was to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. That was true of course. But that wasn’t the public story for Republicans. Today’s comments from McCarthy are a reminder of that and a reminder that things probably haven’t changed.