This is just one example of crap reporting on Congress. Axios is currently running two articles on House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas). In the first, it reports that McCaul was “‘briefly detained’ by police at Dulles International Airport earlier this month after mixing alcohol and Ambien.” In other words, he acted like a complete jackass at the airport, locked himself out of his phone and missed his flight because he’s a drunk. Axios tells us this matters because he is “a powerful U.S. policymaker on foreign affairs..”
In the second piece, Axios reports that “House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) won’t seek a waiver to retain his committee gavel, ending his six-year tenure as the panel’s top Republican.” But in this article, they make no reference to the first piece even though they’re both running on the front page. Instead, by way of explanation, Axios just cuts and pastes a statement from McCaul’s office:
- “Out of respect for [conference] rules and a desire to see future leaders rise from our conference, I have decided not to pursue another term as chairman,” McCaul told Axios in a statement.
- “It has been a tremendous honor to serve as the chairman… I am beyond proud of everything we accomplished over the past six years,” he added.
Here’s the deal. Unlike the Democrats, the Congressional Republicans have term-limits for committee chairs. In the House, this is three two-year terms, and if a chairman wants to remain in place beyond that they have to apply for a waiver. These are often granted but it’s certainly not automatic. So, McCaul may or may not have been able to retain his gavel on the Foreign Affairs Committee. As a reporter, you want to understand what is really behind his decision to give up without a fight.
Was his waiver likely to be denied? And, if so, for what reason? Was someone else on the panel likely to win any fight for McCaul’s gavel? Axios reports that Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson (R-S.C.), Rep. Darrell “Car Thief” Issa (R-Calif.), and Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) are all in the running to replace McCaul. Did one of them scare McCaul off?
Of, could it be that McCaul’s drunken episode at the airport delivered a fatal wound to his hopes for getting a waiver? Two days ago, Semafor seemed to anticipate this in their reporting, noting at the end of their description of McCaul’s episode at Dulles that “he is term-limited at the helm of the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee and would require a waiver from Republican leaders to continue in that role next year.”
“Two weekends ago, I made a mistake — one for which I take full responsibility,” McCaul said in a statement to Semafor. “I missed a flight to Texas and found myself disoriented in the airport. This was the result of a poor decision I made to mix an Ambien — which I took in order to sleep on the upcoming flight — with some alcohol. Law enforcement officers briefly detained me while I waited for a family member to pick me up.”
There was no mention that he wasn’t seeking a waiver, the inference being that he might find it more difficult to get one now that the world knew he was found staggering around the local airport in an inebriated stupor.
But Axios rewarded McCaul for giving them a response by making no mention of the airport incident in their piece on him stepping down from the top of the committee. And they did this even though their article on the airport incident was published on the same day! Like hours earlier. Instead, they reported McCaul’s preposterous explanation that he committed a self-defenestration out of a desire to enable “future leaders.”
I mean, what the fuck? That is criminally bad reporting.
