"Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?"

 

“No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for [the January 6] coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway…

“And no longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, ‘Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?’ Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed.

“Hawley was first to say that he would oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. That action, motivated by ambition, set off much that followed — the rush of his fellow presidential aspirant Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Sedition Caucus to put a show of loyalty to the president above all else…

“Hawley, as he likes to do, quoted Abe Lincoln, who was not there to object, and then doubled down on his pretended alarm about possible fraud. For ‘those who have concerns about what happened in November,’ he said, ‘this is the appropriate means, this is the lawful place where those objections and concerns should be heard.’ And once again Hawley, as he likes to do, isn’t telling the truth” (The Kansas City Star).