Madison Cawthorn’s Getting A Trip To the Cornfield
U.S. Congressman Madison Cawthorn speaking with attendees at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo by Gage Skidmore
Whether it is a leaky roof or a flood in the basement, or a river or creek for that matter, the water always comes from somewhere. In the case of the drip, drip, drip of bad news heading the way of North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-Screwed) the deluge of bad press and optics is coming from a faucet with the hand of the GOP powers that be chanting “lefty loosey” and thrilled to let events unfold from there.
For his part, Madison Cawthorn has given them plenty of wet to rain down upon his head, as detailed here by CNN:
* Cawthorn claimed in March that he had been invited to an orgy during his time in Washington and had seen leaders in the anti-drug movement doing cocaine. After meeting with Cawthorn in the wake of the allegations, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the North Carolina congressman “did not tell the truth. That’s unacceptable.”
* That same month, CNN reported that Cawthorn was facing charges of driving with a revoked driver’s license. It was the second time in the last five years Cawthorn had faced that charge.
* Cawthorn also drew negative headlines in March when a video surfaced in which he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “thug” and said that the Ukrainian government was “incredibly evil.”
*In March 2021, CNN reported on a series of allegations of sexual misconduct made against Cawthorn by women who said he behaved inappropriately to them during his college years. Cawthorn has denied any wrongdoing.
Oh, that doesn’t count the most recent gun charge for packing in the TSA line, the second such incident of recent vintage for Madison Cawthorn, man of many parts. All of them juvenile, suspect, and embarrassing.
At the end of the movie Casino, after running riot for most of the movie doing whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted however he wanted to do it, Nikki Santoro and his brother are supposed to be having a meeting in a cornfield, but instead get their brutal, graphic comeuppance involving baseball bats, trash talk, and finally being buried alive. The whole scene, based off the true story of the Spilotro brothers demise in an Indiana cornfield, was capped off with Robert De Niro’s narration:
The word was out. The bosses had enough of Nicky. They had enough. How much were they gonna take? So, they made an example of him
The GOP powers that be have had enough, and three weeks out from the North Carolina primary with several viable candidates against him, none of this flood of bad is accidental. Air the laundry, give Madison Cawthorn enough public relations rope to hang himself, and let the problem solve itself at the ballot box.
Which is, when you think about it, pragmatic and smart politics.
It’s also utterly cynical and gutless.
What the Republican Party should do is a call a vote, put their names on it, and expel the person they clearly know is unfit for office. None of his character flaws are new news, nor is his juvenile-to-abusive behavior a secret. They’ve known, and known for a while, but now it might hurt them. Or they are mad at the “cocaine orgy” comment, or a dozen other selfish reasons, but now he has to go. But they won’t get their own hands dirty, of course, so off to the rhetorical cornfield he goes to be bludgeoned by story after story until his political career is dead.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. It’s also utterly hypocritical of a GOP that is completely bereft of anything vaguely resembling integrity, and with Kevin McCarthy at the helm and doing anything it takes to get his long-coveted speakership the congressional cohort of Team Red isn’t likely to become a beacon of righteousness anytime soon. Nor is the political body count likely to end with just Madison Cawthorn.
The GOP bosses might have had enough of Madison Cawthorn to finally do something about it, but he is a problem of their own making. Their handling of it is telling as to the limits, and ways, that they will deal with such things and such problematic members of their caucus in the future. Most of all, the truth is although there are survivors in the congressional cornfield of Cawthorn’s comeuppance, there are no good guys here. Just bats, and holes, and problems of their own making to be buried that otherwise wouldn’t go away.
This is who we are governed by. Shame on us. God help us.
There were also the leaked photos of him in lingerie, which do seem to be pretty obviously to be some sort of gag event but which nonetheless seem intended to smear him, especially among conservatives. Curious.
I was a little surprised that his allegations about the cocaine and orgies just seemed so summarily dismissed. I mean, the guy isn’t exactly trust worthy but… neither are any of the folks he seemed to be talking about. I don’t necessarily believe him… but I’m also not necessarily convinced he was lying. Unless I missed it, it doesn’t seem anyone actually tried to dig into the veracity of the comments.
Either way, I agree with the thrust of your article. The GOP wants Cawthorne to go away but not necessarily for the right reasons. And rather than use their actual power to make him go away, they’re sort of just hoping to wish him away.Report
A million years ago, some smart-ass put out the idea that if people with regular jobs had to get drug tested, then Congress should get drug tested.
Make the test results public.
Congress quickly agreed that drug tests were violations of privacy.Report
One of the more interesting trends during my lifetime has been watching the Republicans go from a bunch of stodgy suits and religious types to the home of the most truly bizarre people on the national political stage.Report
When you remember that they have spent 40 years trying to consolidate power so only they win, its not that hard to see how Cawthorne or MTG or Lauren Boebert get elected. Because the end point is power, not competence.Report
Yet another instance where Republicans are cowards and Democrats have no willingness to call them such. Color me shocked.Report
This is yet another data point illustrating why I refuse to regard the Republicans as a normal political party.
Instead they are an insurrectionist faction, dedicated to gaining power itself by any means.
The thuggish threats, the bullying, the vicious hate-fests against the outcasts and vulnerable aren’t deviations from their proclaimed values, they ARE their proclaimed values.Report
Where is Richard Widmark when we need him?Report
Appears we’re in “dead girl/ live boy” territory here:
‘I would like to see a naked body beneath my hands.’ GOP Rep Madison Cawthorn is caught on video with male scheduler’s hand on his crotch
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10764209/GOP-Rep-Madison-Cawthorn-caught-video-male-staff-members-hand-crotch.html
It’s the Daily Mail, so there’s a decent chance the story’s a lie, but it’s a Republican, so there’s a decent chance its true.
Historians will recall this as the Night Of The Long Sporks.Report
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the North Carolina congressman “did not tell the truth. That’s unacceptable.”
No comment necessary.Report
As Southpaw said on Twitter, this shows the Establishment always had the levels to pull on Trump, they just chose not to use them.Report
Is it time for a BSDI argument? I hate those if they’re a defense of an action. But they’re legitimate if they’re against the claim that only one side does it. InMD, Philip H, and Chip don’t say that only the Republicans do it, but it seems implied by the fact that they’re not complaining about how bad Congress is in general.
So I have to bring up Ilhan Omar. Not because of her politics, but because of her tax irregularities, anti-Semitism, seeming hand-waving of 9/11, rumors about her brother, and marriage to a political consultant that her campaign had paid. Her anti-Semitic comments were nearly condemned by the House, but the Democrats massaged it into a broad condemnation of bad things in general.Report
When Dems in Congress do things that we believe are bad, we complain. we also check facts before we wave arms, which is why we don’t wave much about Rep. Omar since everything you note have been extensively investigated and debunked publicly.
If you are going to BSDI here, please share which Democratic congresspersons have repeatedly carried loaded guns through TSA check points while impugning the character of their fellow representatives regarding orgies and drugs, after making inflammatory remarks about using physical violence against people they disagree with from a policy perspective?Report
I’ll grant you that you personally are willing to criticize Democrats.
No Democrat has committed the specific claims against Cawthorn. Your position was that Republicans favor power over competence, and on that general point, BSDI.Report
Republicans do favor power over competence. That’s why MGT won’t suffer any punishment for saying the catholic church is under Satan’s influence because it cares for refugees and migrants. That’s why Cawthorn won’t be censured or run out of congress (unlike Al Franken). And its why Kevin McCarthy continuously beclowns himself trying to get the House Speakership.Report
I don’t know that I’d vote for her in a primary but I think a lot of her comments on Israel and the ME/terrorism produce some much needed discussion on substantive issues of foreign policy.Report
There’s one Ilhan Omar in the Democratic Party.
There are about 70 million Tucker Carlsons in the GOP.
By that, I mean the sort of people who call the attempted overthrow of a free election, a “kerfuffle.”Report
* For fans of continuity: someone made a reference to Jan 6th as, I don’t remember, but something other than an insurrection. Someone else called that out. I commented that Andrew Klavan refers to Jan 6th as a “kerfuffle”. It looks like that conversation was pulled; I’d guess due to the trolling nature of the initial comment. *
We’ve talked about Jan 6th before, I’m sure. I consider it in substance an insurrection, in action a riot, and in potential impact a kerfuffle. It delayed the election certification by a few hours; at the worst, it could have done so for a day. I think it’s important to call it an insurrection, but it’s also important to mock that label, because it bestows a gravity on the situation that it just didn’t have. It was nothing like the Civil War or 9/11, as some have tried to paint it, and I worry that foreigners and low-information Americans might start to believe that nonsense.
Anyway, following the BSDI rules, I’ll say that there’s one Madison Cawthorn in the Republican Party, and about 70 million Cenks, Stelters, and Whoopis.Report