Yes, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his GOP underlings have decided to take their ball and go home after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rightly rejected two of his picks to join the select committee that will examine the Jan. 6 insurrection. But all is not lost: Pelosi is reportedly considering adding another Republican or two of her choosing — perhaps including Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — to join the Democrat-led panel.
That would be a good move. It would give the investigation itself an added bipartisan veneer to buff up its credibility with the non-Twitter-obsessed public that doesn't follow such things closely. More broadly — and maybe more importantly — it might also act as a signal from Pelosi to Republicans who find themselves alienated from their party during the Donald Trump era: Hey. We're here. Come be part of our coalition.
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That's not to say they'd make a good fit with Democrats. Cheney is too much of a foreign policy hawk, for example, and Kinzinger too conservative on abortion to ever be comfortable joining up with Pelosi on a permanent basis.
But their estrangement from the GOP frees up the party's remaining non-Trumpists to form occasional alliances with Democrats. That, in turn, sends a message to Republican voters that it's okay to cross party lines for the greater good.
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