Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
Michael, over the last in the last few days, one of the great athletes of all time, Pelé, passed away. We also had an athlete, a football player in top physical condition, and the collapse of a cardiovascular issue on the field.
And the response to both, both Pelé’s death, which was not unexpected, and then the collapse of the football player, which was completely unexpected, the response is telling in that great athletes, are lifted up.
Idolized is not the right word, but there’s tremendous respect for great athletes. Now, you compare that to what’s going on in Washington DC and the selection for Speaker of the House. And by the way, the selection for Speaker of the House is a metaphor for what’s going on in Washington, D.C.
And comparing that to great athletes. So why are great athletes so respected? And the answer is this, by the way. There’s more than what I’m about to say, but I’m trying to get to the essence of it. To be a great athlete, you have to be incredibly dedicated.
Your work ethic has to be above the work ethic of virtually any other person, especially from a physical standpoint. You aspire for excellence. You do not aspire for mediocrity, you do not aspire for people to come together and all agree at the lowest possible common denominator. You aspire for excellence.
By your actions, you show leadership. And the other thing that athletes do is they’re out there, and they are competing genuinely. It’s not like a staged deal where the outcome is predetermined. And so an athlete is going to be in public and is going to win or perhaps lose.
And if you’re a professional golfer or a professional tennis player and you enter an event, the chances of you winning are extremely low. If you’re a team player, one team is going to win, one team’s going to lose. But we saw in the World Cup the emotional display of teams that got knocked out in the early rounds and how distressed they were.
And so when we look at athletes, when we look at athletes, we have great admiration for them because they compete and they know they might win and they know they will lose, but they persevere and they continue on. So let’s look at our politicians and what’s going on in Washington.
I’m actually very happy about what’s going on in Washington in regard to Kevin McCarthy. I don’t have a strong feeling one way or another for Kevin McCarthy. And that’s part of the problem for me because I didn’t have a particularly strong feeling for John Boehner.
Then I found out because he was the guy that never voted for an earmark while he was a member of the House. And then he became Speaker of the House, and he became a creature of the lobbyists. And then when he retired, he became a lobbyist. And then you look at Paul Ryan, another Speaker of the House who didn’t do much and who didn’t stand for much but acted like he stood for much, and he did the perfunctory conservative things.
But when he retired, he too became a creature of Washington. And so you have Kevin McCarthy and you ask yourself, is Kevin McCarthy just another creature of Washington? And don’t know the answer to that, because I don’t know Kevin McCarthy, don’t know him at all, never met the guy.
But there are people who are voting against him, who don’t trust him. There are people who are voting against him, who don’t trust him. There are others who are kind of falling in line because that’s the thing to do. I don’t think Kevin McCarthy, it looks to me like this is not me saying what my personal opinion is going to look like to me, he’s going to be our next Speaker of the House.
I don’t think he’s going to get the votes. And it looks to me like he had the chance along the way to make concessions to those people who, frankly said, Kevin, we just simply don’t trust that you’ll do the right thing if you’re under a lot of stress. And therefore, we want certain rules changes.
By the way, rules changes back to what they were before Pelosi. Pelosi is the one. Now, here’s what’s also interesting. Pelosi had the ability to pick up the phone and crush your next election. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the power to pick up the phone and crush anybody in the Republican Party because Republicans raise their own money.
They don’t cow-tow to government employee unions and private sector unions. They raise their own money from people who have certain values and who care for things. And you can’t control those donors by picking up the phone and calling them.
And so when I look at Pelé and I look at the football player from the Buffalo Bills, and I look at other athletes when they pass away and the public takes note of that and pays homage to their hard work, their authenticity, and then I look at what’s going on in Washington, maybe this is a wake-up moment for the Republican Party. Certainly won’t be for the Democrat Party.
They just keep falling in line voting for that guy, I don’t even remember his name, Hakeem somebody or other. But it doesn’t matter. It can be Hakeem so and so. It could be Jerry Nadler so and so. It could be Nancy Pelosi so and so.
It could be AOC, so and so. It wouldn’t matter because they’re puppets. They’re controlled by the unions, not the other way around. Hats off to great athletes and their work effort and their ability to be genuine, and then let’s see what happens in Washington. But it’s exactly the opposite.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
