Shakespearean Villain Takes Center Stage in Congress
The Select Committee to Investigate January 6 convened today, July 27, 2021
Over the past five years as the Trump drama plays out, Sam and I occasionally wonder which of Shakespeare’s characters this or that public figure resembles. I only wish I knew my Shakespeare better. Maybe one of you has a suggestion about the one player today who seems to me to have taken center stage and is unable to leave it. Let me explain.
We watched video this evening of the four Capital and Metropolitan Police Officers who testified today. They obviously still suffer the effects of January 6. But to a man, their courage and loyalty have survived in full force.
As each in turn talked through the events of that day, I realized that one figure, for me, began to loom in the background: it was Kevin McCarthy.
As I listened to them and read notes on the screen, I became aware that Officers Fanone and Dunn had met on June 25th with Republican House Minority Leader McCarthy. At first, I thought McCarthy must have called the meeting to influence their testimony. I was curious about it, so as soon as we could we found a news report.
I was surprised to learn that Fanone and Dunn had tried for weeks to talk privately with Leader McCarthy. They wanted to ask him “to publicly denounce the lies Republican lawmakers have been telling about the deadly attack”, to stop the rumors that left-wing extremists and even the FBI itself were behind it, and to recognize publicly that it was Trump’s supporters who assaulted our Capitol.
They wanted McCarthy to acknowledge the truth, I believe, so the healing could begin.
The article says that after an hour with him the officers came away disappointed. McCarthy merely told them “he would address it at a personal level, with some of those [Republican] members.”
Today, Officer Dunn pointed out that when Congress reconvened the night of January 6, McCarthy condemned the riot as “un-American”.
This week McCarthy is famous for trying to sabotage Speaker Pelosi’s Select Committee that convened today to investigate the attack on the Capitol. And just yesterday McCarthy was outraged at the events of the 6th, said it should never have happened, and then blamed Pelosi for failing to provide the security to prevent it.
Of course, he’s also famous for calling Trump during the insurrection to beg him to call it off. In January the Washington Post reported:
[McCarthy] didn’t support impeachment, but he did float the idea of a historic censure of the president, saying Trump “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”
It was reported that Trump had warned McCarthy, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Then McCarthy explains to Fox News that it seems Trump had responded sufficiently to his pleas for action on January 6th, after all.
Here’s why I think McCarthy is playing a Shakespeare-sized role.
I myself couldn’t imagine such a display of fawning, fear and cowardice, or nimbleness in saying whatever it is that will avoid a strike on the head by the boss. There’s a kind of desperate genius in McCarthy’s condemning the riots on one hand (so you can’t say he wasn’t upset), and on the other hand blaming them on Pelosi (see, it was not Trump’s fault, after all).
It’s an incredibly clever way to dodge the hangman.
McCarthy is a villain more instinctively calculating and cowardly than his boss, Trump, who is rather more practiced. Kevin is low to the ground.
What villain in Shakespeare was so tortured? What function did his character serve in the plot? And how did he get caught?
Oh, I should add, today McCarthy stood a step behind Mitch McConnell when they said they didn’t watch the hearings. Or maybe it was just McConnell that spoke for the both of them. You can’t tell under the masks.
My conclusion: four true patriots testified today, but I don’t know if Shakespeare wrote about them. I really, really wish I had paid more attention in class.
I don't know much about Shakespeare but what I do know is these two ugly ducklings look a lot better behind those masks!!
Mary