BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  MAY 17, 2024

It has been written and rewritten that six months ago Rep. Mike Johnson was a backbencher, unknown to much of the public outside his home state of Louisiana. So, when he became Speaker of the House, he faced a tough crowd all too anxious to pass judgement on him before there was any judgment to pass.

The media mostly concluded within days that only six years into his congressional career he was still a wet-behind-the-ears apprentice, wore a MAGA hat to bed at night, and was too captive to his religious beliefs to lead a secular Congress.

Even members of his Republican conference told the media, anonymously of course, that he was a “leader in name only,” and was having a “bad, very, very bad awful time leading the House Republican conference,” according to columnist Marc Theissen writing in the Washington Post.
What a difference six months make, eh, as my relatives north of the border would say.

In short order, Speaker Johnson planted his feet on tremoring ground and acted like a Speaker. He rose like the mythical phoenix from the ashes of chaos and total dysfunction in Congress (hyperbole is not for the timid). He prevented a government shutdown, won reauthorization of the Security Surveillance Act, got the appropriations process back on track, and won approval of critical aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Johnson also reopened the passageway between House Democrats and Republicans so that governing could actually take place. Continue reading →