US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson delivers brief remarks on a shooting in Lewiston, Maine which has claimed eighteen lives.
The Issue: The House’s election of Rep. Mike Johnson as speaker after the seat was vacant for three weeks.
The expression “the cream always rises to the top” — sometimes used to describe circumstances where the most-accomplished people emerge from the crowd — is not absolute (“House GOP Likes Mike,” Oct. 26).
There was an embarrassing display of dysfunction by the Republican majority in the House, starting with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. The fractious GOP rejected a number of speaker candidates whose ideologies were out of alignment with certain factions within the conference.
After quashing bids by three prominent House members, Republicans finally settled on a known ally of former President Donald Trump and an active participant in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Rep. Mike Johnson.
Handing the speaker’s gavel to a known election-denier who opposes providing support to an ally, Ukraine, should send a message to the electorate that, in the Republican Party, cream is not the only substance that can rise to the top.
Jim Paladino
Tampa, Fla.
Almost simultaneously with the election of Johnson as speaker of the House, several of Trump’s associates were pleading guilty to various criminal violations for the conspiracy to decertify the 2020 election.
