Quick take: What if the Democrats had dealt with Ilhan Omar years ago?

 The current hullaballoo in Congress is that McCarthy is refusing to seat several Democrats on committees, among them, Ilhan Omar.  This is retaliation for Pelosi's similar moves on Marjorie Taylor Greene, and some other Republicans.  I will have some comments this weekend, in long form, on the nature of revenge, punishment and equilibrium, but for today, I simply make the observation that I have been saying for years that the Democrats needed to deal with Ilhan Omar.  McCarthy's refusal to seat Swalwell and Schiff is unjustified.  It is partisan retaliation, as they have done nothing wrong in any objective sense.  One can disagree with them, but they have not crossed any real lines.  Ilhan Omar is another story.  Ilhan Omar is an antisemite.  She spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories, but her party looks the other way for two reasons.  First, she has "intersectional" characteristics that let her get away with anything she wants, and second, if you dress up antisemitism in the guise of support for some other higher-ranking oppressed group, you win the oppression olympics, even though all you are doing is talking about how me and my fellow hook-nosed bankers are controlling the world with our filthy, filthy money.  I have a faculty member in my department who pulls this on me, and threatens me.  Physically.  Funny, but CWRU knows about it, and doesn't care.  Not ha-ha funny, but, you know.

Anyway, what if the Democratic Party had done what I said they needed to do long ago?  What if they had expelled Ilhan Omar?  What if they had dealt with Greene, and Omar?  They are both insane antisemites, so why not be consistent?

If they had done that, they could have said, we clean up our own messes.  Omar gives cover to the GOP in a way that Schiff and Swalwell do not.  Her bigotry, her conspiracy theories, her blatant anti-Americanism... all of that make her toxic to the point that when there was a Somali artist playing a concert in Minneapolis a while back, and she was introduced, she got booed.  By the Somali-American crowd.  She is toxic.  Yet by not dealing with her, and by not holding her to any standard, the Democrats gave the GOP the ability to say, oh, you don't want to seat Greene on committees?  We won't seat Omar.

Neither has any business in Congress, and neither has any business on any committee.  Would McCarthy have raised the stakes by going after Schiff and Swalwell if Pelosi had dealt with Omar?  I don't know.  Possibly.  McCarthy is a weasel.  It would be harder, though.

More this weekend on the nature of revenge.  Revenge is ugly.