(Originally published on NewsMax.)
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., was not the first choice to succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House of Representatives. After the position was vacant for three weeks, he was the fourth nominee put forward, and he won on a party line vote.
He replaced a failed speaker who broke promises to the public and his party and seemed more willing to kowtow to Democrats than support the Republicans even when the Republicans were correct.
Once Johnson was elected, the media didn’t waste any time vilifying him. They called him extremist, far right, and tried to tie him to the train tracks of Donald Trump’s 2020 vote challenge, among other things. While inaccurate or extremely skewed, it is what we have come to expect from the left-leaning legacy media. That is to say, honesty and integrity do not show up on their list of core values.
These instant and unfounded attacks are actually an indicator that we should give Johnson a chance as speaker, see how he does. If the media and Democrat politicians hate him, it probably means they are scared he will do something right in a system designed to reward wickedness. We just need to cut through the rhetoric.
The country right now is facing big issues that previous speakers and the current administration have either ignored or mishandled. Illegal immigration. A crippling debt. Inflation. War in Ukraine. War in Israel. Politicized DOJ, FBI and DHS, punishing political enemies through indictment abuse and unequal enforcement of the law.
Johnson stuck to his guns and started getting things done.
That’s not to say he hasn’t made some missteps. He has. He helped pass a defense bill that maintained the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy and continued allowing electronic spying on U.S. citizens.
However, he has released the entirety of the J6 footage, which could help free people who have been wrongly persecuted by the government. He has opened an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden’s questionable financial connections to foreign countries and his family members.
He is negotiating Ukraine aid to get more U.S. border enforcement. These are all things that did not and would not have happened with a weak or morally unprincipled speaker.
Johnson hasn’t even been speaker for two months yet, and it can be argued that he has already gotten more done than McCarthy. He certainly hasn’t been as harmful to the country as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who worked to divide the country even further than it already is and reaped the financial benefits that so many in Congress enjoy.
And if Johnson turns out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing like McCarthy, as we have so recently been reminded, he can be removed from his position. Also, with the presidential election looming and the possibility of a House power shift back to the Democrats, he may be forced to turn over the gavel to New York’s Hakeem Jeffries in a year anyway.
Meanwhile, he should be given a chance and our support when he does something with which we agree. If he makes a bad call, we’ll let him know it.
Give Johnson his chance. Others have been given much more time and done much less for our country.
And if for some reason he doesn’t work out, the House ought to consider nominating someone from outside — a non-elected person who has a track record of integrity and holding government officials and agencies accountable, someone who understands that the role of government is not to protect itself but the people it is there to serve.
The Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, an anti-abortion medical network based in Buffalo, New York, is married with 10 children. He passionately exposes unequal enforcement of the law and immoral public policy. Read more of the Rev. Jim Harden’s Reports — Here.
