There’s more to the House Speaker battle than you may think. It’s about the political class trying to hold on to power.
But Jim Jordan has turned the Fake News Media on its head without saying a single word.
On Monday, the Associated Press published an article on the Ohio Republican who is running for speaker of the House. The article seemed to be written with the intention of frightening GOP members with the idea of a “political brawler” assuming the leadership.
It was a terrible idea though, for AP to use Representative Liz Cheney for this.
An Associated Press social media post promoting the article took a decidedly Leftist slant in its analysis of Jordan.
According to the news service’s piece on X, “Rep. Jim Jordan becoming House speaker would help cement the far right’s takeover of the Republican Party and trigger conflict with Democrats over the size and scope of government.”
Rep. Jim Jordan becoming House speaker would help cement the far right's takeover of the Republican Party and trigger conflict with Democrats over the size and scope of government. https://t.co/dlRmJLFil5
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 16, 2023
It’s hard to understand why that would be an issue, given that “conflict with Democrats over the size and scope of government” is the Republican Party’s raison d’etre.
Fear mongering phrases like “far right takeover” may have been coined by the mainstream media to discredit Republicans with backbone, but they have been used so often that they no longer carry the same weight they once did.
Nonetheless, the AP article sold itself with the sentence, “Some members of Congress — including some in his own party — label Jordan an extremist unworthy of the speakership, pointing to his active role in Trump’s bid to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election and his refusal to honor a congressional subpoena about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,” which was the real tell.
That would be much more frightening if the reporters could really quote someone from Jordan’s party in Congress making such statements. It instead consulted with former Republican Congressmen John Boehner of Ohio and Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
The article does its job by pointing out that Boehner has been an opponent of Jordan’s since Jordan’s time in the Ohio state assembly. It also mentions Jordan as one of the conservative leaders that had a major role in removing Boehner as speaker in 2015.
The article also quotes a comment from a 2021 interview Boehner gave to CBS, in which he claimed, “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart — never building anything, never putting anything together.”
Jordan was instrumental in the formation of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative politicians who have been a rare bright spot for the American Right in Washington.
However, the article’s true colors are shown in the section when Liz Cheney is quoted. It paraphrases what Cheney stated in her recent speech:
“If the Republicans decide that Jim Jordan should be the speaker of the House, there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”
This is complete foolishness coming from anyone, but coming from Liz Cheney is just hilarious and insane. This is the same Liz Cheney who, after serving on Nancy Pelosi’s committee appointed to look into the Jan. 6 “invasion” of the Capitol, concluded that former President Trump was to blame.
This is the same Liz Cheney who suffered a devastating 37-point defeat in last year’s Wyoming Republican primary.
The AP’s attempt to portray her as speaking on behalf of Jordan’s own party simply because she identifies as such is incredibly deceptive. However, the strategy has failed AP.
The Associated Press was widely criticized on social media for essentially advocating for Jim Jordan to become Speaker of the House.
Thank you for endorsing Jim Jordan as speaker!
— Eric Hellwig (@Coach_Hellwig) October 16, 2023
There are some anti-Jordan posts, but the majority recognized the AP article for what it was: a smear job on the man who very well could be elected House speaker on Tuesday.
Given the razor-thin Republican majority in the chamber, Jordan will require practically all of the support from inside the Republican conference.
However, the point remains that Jordan, who entered Congress in 2007 after upsetting an incumbent Democrat by a 60% to 40% margin, has been one of the most reliably conservative lawmakers in the House ever since.
The most effective thing the AP could have done to persuade Republicans to vote for Jordan was to point to Liz Cheney’s complaints as a cause to vote against him for the position of speaker. And they did just that.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
