McCarthy loses 5— No, 6— rounds of voting for Speaker

I haven't written much about politics in my blog over the past year, but that's not a reflection of my interest (or lack thereof) in following politics. I do stay on top of the new every day and consume it from multiple sources. One odd thing that's been in US political news yesterday and today is the election for Speaker of the House of Representatives. For the first time in over 100 years, no Speaker has been selected even after multiple rounds of balloting.

Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) was the presumptive candidate for speakership. He'd been the minority leader for 4 years. With the Republicans gaining a majority in the House after last November's elections, McCarthy was naturally in line for the job. Over the past few weeks, though, a small number of strongly conservative House members have opposed his candidacy. There were 5 of them— just enough to tank his accession in a House where the Republicans hold a slim, 4-seat majority.

It turns out opposition has been wider than just that core bloc of 5 members. In the first round of ballots Tuesday 19 Republican members voted against McCarthy. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries actually won more votes than McCarthy as Democrats were united in voting for him.

As of Wednesday afternoon Congress has now gone through five now SIX rounds of votes for Speaker with still no winner. McCarthy had boldly predicted after the first few losses yesterday that he'd wear down his opponents and they'd come over to his side. Instead, on the fourth and fifth ballots today he lost a supporter each time. Talk is growing among Republican circles that it's time for McCarthy to withdraw in favor of a compromise candidate.

What's the Impact?

What does it actually matter how many rounds of balloting it takes? I've heard a lot of politicos and commentators remark that McCarthy's speakership would be weakened if he won after even one failed round of voting. I both agree and disagree with that argument.

On the one hand, regardless of how many rounds of votes it takes, and regardless of whether the winner wins by a single vote or an overwhelming majority, the winner is the winner. The new Speaker has all the powers of the office.

On the other hand, there's been significant horse-trading behind closed doors to woo opponents. Key concessions McCarthy made give more power to far-right members of his party, e.g. in the form of committee assignments. These committee members and leaders could use their investigative powers to tie the federal government up with wasteful, bad-faith investigations of the Biden administration. ...And no, that's not a worst-case hypothetical notion from someone on the other side of the political divide; it's what these members have openly and repeatedly promised to do.

All the same, though, this speakership has been destined to be weak, at least for the next 2 years. That's because there's a Democrat president and Democrat majority in the Senate. The Republican majority in the House can block legislation from going through, but it's a two edged sword. If they overplay their hand and block too many bills or waste too much time on conspiracy theory-driven investigations they'll tarnish their party's reputation in the short term and hamper its performance in the 2024 elections.

"Weird" is... Just Too Weird

A few weeks ago we watched "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story". It's available streaming for free on the Roku channel. How was it? Well, it was... just too weird. I hated it.

I know that's a strong statement. You might think, "Well, you just don't 'get' parody." (BTW, if you think that you have no clue about me.) Let me contextualize it.

I loved Weird Al's music since 1984, when "Eat It", his parody of Michael Jackson's hit "Beat It", came out. I heard it on the radio, and it was like a revelation to me. Music could be funny! And not just slapstick or bathroom humor funny, but poke-fun-at-things-that-people-hold-sacred funny. I.e., satire.

I told all my friends at school about it. At first nobody knew what it was. They all cracked up laughing when I repeated some of the lyrics, though. Soon more of us heard it on the radio— but not very often. I got bold and called a DJ to play it so my friends and family could all hear it.

I remained a fan of Weird Al's parodies for years. I bought a few of his albums. I eagerly watched the movie UHF (1989) as soon as I found out Yankovic wrote & starred in it. I think when I rented it on VHS I watched it 3 times in one weekend, then rented it again 9 months later.

Thus I was pretty primed to see "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." Perhaps because of the title (which I took literally) I expected it to be a biography. A funny biography, to be sure; and likely parodying the biopic genre, as parody is at the heart of what Weird Al does. And that's where my dislike for the movie spawned.

You see, Weird is not a biography. It starts out as a sort of parody/biography, taking satirical liberties with the truth— which is exactly what I was expecting— but then gradually becomes completely unmoored from reality. Pretty soon it's a Weird Al self glorification fest on LSD, and it's not amusing.

Among the run-on jokes I found tedious:

• Al's parents hate him, like sadistically hate him, and treat him as a failure even when he's objectively successful


• Al insists repeatedly that he wrote Eat It as an original song, not a work of parody, and Michael Jackson wrote a little-known parody based on it


• Madonna threw herself at Al, made him an alcoholic, and tried to turn him into a murderous drug cartel leader.

Let me reiterate: these gags were funny at first, but like too many jokes Saturday Night Live runs into the ground in their many bad seasons, they were made unfunny by excessive repetition.

As I sat through to the end of the movie I was reminded of what a writing teacher said to one of my classmates years ago about his absurdist comedy story written in the fashion of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "John," he said— I think his name was John— "Your story is like a hot air balloon with no ropes. It rises and it's beautiful. But it's not moored to the ground of reality. It starts floating away, further and further away from reality, until the audience can't make sense of it anymore."

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" is that untethered balloon floating farther and farther away.