Fine, Veep's Jonah Ryan will take the Speaker Of The House spot

For the past few days, American governance has functioned, essentially, a little like that bit with the luggage cart from the first Austin Powers movie. California Republican Kevin McCarthy, who obviously thought he was going to slide into the Speaker Of The House position without becoming, say, a national laughingstock, dutifully backs up his little legislative cart a bit…and then slams it right back into the same wall of hard-line right-wing Reps. who’ve been blocking his efforts all week. Then he does it again, with no apparent forward progress. Then a Democrat yells out a “Leeeeeeroy Jenkins!” reference, just to layer on an added bit of pop culture silliness. Then everyone adjourns for the day, safe in the knowledge of another day’s leadership done.

Clearly, it is a time for someone to step forward to break this deadlock. A hero, who defines the time in which they live. And if they’re fictional, and if they’ve gotten COVID 27 times so far thanks to an addiction to seeing Top Gun: Maverick in theaters, well… so much the better. Veep’s Jonah Ryan can be that man.

This is per David Mandel, former showrunner on the HBO political satire, who shared a letter today from the anti-vax, anti-daylight-savings-time, pro-marrying-your-own-sister fictitious former vice president of the United States, who has graciously offered to take on the role of Speaker Of The House, since the House itself can’t seem to make up its damn mind. Jonah, after all, appeals to a broad coalition of people, each worse than the last, and pledges to make any and all concessions necessary to get himself a bigger gavel (and an opportunity to give “private prison magnate and casino owner Sherman Tanz” anything he wants).

Jonah’s letter was also shared on social media by Timothy Simons, who for several years was the unfortunate host of the Jonah Ryan consciousness, as well as all of the attendant jokes about the human body in which he is continually forced to live. Meanwhile, Simons’ long-time co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus drew her own Veep parallels to the current situation in the House yesterday, demanding that the show receive yet another Emmy for this latest political farce demonstrating the venal and idiotic nature of the American political system.