Same clown car, different driver

I love political poetry, and I’m excited to tell you that I‘ve just discovered the poet laureate of North Dakota. I’m told he speaks his native tongue in iambic pentameter and, in addition, serves as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a once honored distinction. Before that, he was in the North Dakota state Senate and was chairman of the state’s Republican Party. He’s been in Congress for two terms serving with, and getting to know, Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Honorable Kelly Armstrong, bless his Republican heart, said of Johnson’s election as Speaker “It’s the same clown car with a different driver.” When I first heard that line, I thought Chuck Schumer had developed a public sense of humor or that Nancy Pelosi possibly whispered it leaving the chamber while waving an odd goodbye. I was wrong. It came from within the Republicans majority and took some courage to say.

Armstrong cannot be accused of being a closet liberal, God forbid, and is no RINO, not a Republican In Name Only, but a bona fide Republican. We need to consider what he is describing as reality and what its implications are. That requires us to look at what Johnson has said and believed in for a long time.

As a member of a right-wing evangelical group, he brags that he talks to God daily. I have no information about those holy conversations, but I think I can hear likely conversations with his longtime religious mentor, Ray Comfort. Comfort believes in “mandated marriage,” there should be no abortions for any reason, God is punishing gay people with “monkeypox.”

Comfort is a pious, vindictive evangelical and Mike Johnson has been a public and proud disciple.

Here is a recent newspaper report: “Speaker Johnson joined the Board of Living Waters years ago in support of his mission of spreading Christian gospel.” That passion was deep, constant, and unambiguous.

Today, however, there is a different story. His spokesperson since his election as speaker said, “His involvement was limited to two phone calls with his fellow board members annually. He had not seen the content in question, was not aware of it and does not agree with it.” Comfort was not available for comment. He was probably reading a pamphlet he had written, “God and Sexuality.” Comfort himself once wrote his readers that he knew he “sounded like a raving lunatic,” but to be patient with him.

Johnson certainly was patient. He has written “I am such a great fan of your ministry and of you and cannot overstate what a profound influence you’ve had in my walk with God and in my walk with Christ.”

We can only hope for a new driver soon. As long as the Republicans control the House and the far right have the power they have, we are guaranteed a circus that does not entertain. The clowns expose themselves as hypocrites, concerned always with the private life of a few rather than the real problems of many.

If Ray Comfort and Mike Johnson drive the clown car and mistakenly get to Heaven, they would not praise God, but check behind the dark clouds for a gay angel or maybe two.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.