Over the weekend, I visited a friend in Detroit. He was complaining about Trump and I was forced to admit that I shared many of his concerns. The President tends to be unpleasantly boorish, he shoots his mouth off a lot, and I've made no secret of the fact that I see a lot of chaos in this White House.
"But," I argued, "who really cares? If the things he does are things that I support, what difference does the admittedly messy window dressing make?"
So, I started rattling off things that had happened in the last six months that I supported. Starting with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch and the reversal of a whole swath of Obama-era executive actions and orders, there's a fair amount of 'stuff' to be happy about. Have we gotten everything we wanted? Obviously not - I'm looking at you, ObamaCare - but that's mostly due to Senatorial issues.
The President, for all his faults, has been backing solid policy decisions. Now, it looks like the House GOP would like you to know that they've been trying to do their part as well.
About half of what appears in this newly-released House GOP video are things I mentioned to my Motor City compatriot. I actually missed this clip when it launched last week, so a tip of the hat goes to Townhall's Guy Benson for spotting it today...
Look, I'm not being Pollyanna-ish about this. I've been as hard as anyone on the Republicans in Congress. I would still argue that they've presented us with far more missed opportunities than wins, and some of the victories they claim in this video were only half-measures. We need to rid ourselves of the squishy RINO contingent, and move forward with the real meat of the agenda that won in 2016.
However, it is nice to see them push back against the "do nothing" narrative - if only a little bit.
Now, if only they'd "do more" we'd be in far better shape. As I said last week, if the GOP skates through the rest of 2017 without passing major tax reforms, this will be a much tougher (maybe impossible) sell.
But, if you're looking for a glimmer of hope, here it is...
