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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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so yeah, I'll take my rumor over what comes out of McCarthy's mouth about backdoor dealings

The issue is the rumor would require McCarthy to be a bad politician. Believe me, there is no-one who trusts politicians words less than me (I've worked with a lot of them,). But the good ones don't lie without cause. Here his words support what his best course of action was, so probably he wasn't lying, if we think he was a good politician. Indeed I think he is a good enough politician that he could have got concessions from the Democrats had he wanted, which is another piece of evidence (but not proof) that he was probably pursuing his best and only real option.

The issue is the rumor would require McCarthy to be a bad politician

good politicians make dumb political moves; I can think McCarthy is a good politician, which includes selective lying and other scummy things he does regularly, and yet still think the last few weeks of his 7 months speakership were dumb political moves

But the good ones don't lie without cause

you mean like when you realize Democrats aren't going to save you despite dialogue about it being a possibility when you were using Democrats to pass bills over ardent opposition by your own caucus so you have to play "I'm ride or Die GOP, fellas!" card?

this is why I characterized it as cooperate/defect with Democrats being involved because they were involved; picking out the last vote in a string of votes, which I believe you would also characterize as"cooperate" with Democrats, when the dice were already rolled ignores that