In a piece for St Louis Today, columnist Kevin McDermott hammered House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for his half-hearted attempts to rein in Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and was compared, quite unfavorably, to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to the columnist, Zelensky's defiance as Russia's President Vladimir Putin orders his troops to overrun his country stands in stark contrast to McCarthy running away when asked about Taylor Greene speaking at a white nationalist conference.
"A new hero to many Americans today is a man whose name they may have trouble pronouncing. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bold stand against Russia’s invasion has shown many of us what courage in leaders looks like, " he wrote. "Meanwhile, one of our own leaders, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy, recently darted from TV cameras like a startled cat rather than publicly criticize a member of his caucus for speaking at a white-nationalist gathering where a crowd of supposed Americans chanted its support for Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin."
While noting the Republican Party is loaded with lawmakers who fear a cross word from Donald Trump, the columnist singled out McCarthy who runs scared from his own caucus.
"For those keeping score at home, McCarthy’s refusal to call out this kind of evil for fear of offending the extremists in his party is the opposite of courage. It’s called cowardice — and it’s a defining characteristic of elected Republicans today," he wrote before labeling the controversial Georgia Republican as "deranged" and a "lunatic."
Pointing out, "Zelensky, Ukraine’s 44-year-old president, is the same leader who then-President Trump tried to strong-arm for campaign help in 2019, holding U.S. military aid over his head," and adding Republicans turned a blind eye to Trump's blackmail, the columnist continued, "Now the leader of the U.S. ally they betrayed along with their oaths is standing courageously against Russia’s invasion, while the top House Republican doesn’t have the borscht to stand up to a bunch of Putin-loving skinheads and a deranged congresswoman."
"Zelensky is pinned down in Kyiv, predicting his own death but defiantly rallying his country to stand firm, while McCarthy can’t make his mouth say the words Rep. Greene shouldn’t have spoken to that racist, pro-Putin gathering while cameras are rolling," he wrote. "Among the questions McCarthy hadn’t answered by mid-week was whether the party that just ex-communicated two of its House members for having the audacity to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should take similarly strong action against two other members who played footsie with pro-Russia traitors and neo-Nazi creeps."
McDermott added, "So Trump’s cowardice-inspiring effects on elected Republicans have apparently spread, cancer-like, to topics beyond Trump himself," before adding, "If you’re a Republican House leader hoping to become House speaker next year, that means treading lightly around a nut-case congresswoman and her white-supremacist goons."
You can read more here.
