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Huh? It's hard to tell from just reading his nonsensical quotes out of context, but McCarthy's speaking tick is that he constantly interrupts himself, and he never finishes a thought. Listen to him answer this Tea Partier's question at a town hall meeting. (His answer starts at 1:36.)He's jumping all over the place, and then he becomes lucid for long enough to tell a joke, and then he goes back to saying random shit like in one of those Bad Lip Reading videos, except real. I hope he doesn't ruin the fun by taking a diction class.Don't get me wrong—politically he's all the things a Republican has to be to get elected: pro-life, for instance, and a card-carrying member of the oil-and-coal fan club—but contrary to a lot of jokes that are going to come out in the next few days, he's not unusually evil. The rumors about his being evil will come from two trivia items:One of the most important I think that can happen today, Lynn Jenkins's bill, an idea of fairness, the idea that when you look across the street from the Capitol, you see the Supreme Court, you see the statue sitting there, blinded in the process with the weights in-between.
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Granted, that's a pretty scary sentiment, particularly the part about hurting people, but apparently he's a huge film buff, and he hosts movie nights with other representatives. My guess is that, just like me, he's too saturated with media to resist a reference to a scene that feels right, no matter how much violence it might imply. I sympathize.2. He's the inspiration for Frank Underwood, the evil House majority whip from House of Cards.Well, sort of. Yes, he did let Kevin Spacey shadow him when Spacey was preparing for the role. Yes, he gave House of Cards a quote that became one of the show's most iconic threats. Yes, he did say, "If I could kill just one member of Congress, my job would be a lot easier." But the true inspiration for Frank Underwood is some British guy.The Republican party is full of cloak-and-dagger figures like Dick Cheney, genuinely hateful demagogues like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, and ruthless juggernauts like Richard Nixon. At the gut level, Kevin McCarthy doesn't strike me as any of those. I would take comfort in the fact that he lacks the oratory skills and policy expertise to bring about some kind of real shift to the right, but past Republicans leaders have proven that a lack of those skills isn't actually an impediment.(Ed. Note- An earlier version of this article referred to Pete Sessions as a Tea Partier. He isnt one.)Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.
