Like some of you, I have some liberal friends. We try to steer away from politics in conversation. But I was so repulsed by the January 6th riots, and the rioters, two of them think they can make common cause with me on that subject.

In an attempt to be gracious and fair, they read my articles. Because of my aforementioned attitude, they have given me heat recently over my suspicions regarding the January 6th committee. Their basic line was that the event was so egregious, as I myself said in January, that a hard charging Pelosi would be the only one to get to the bottom of it. I know, what horse manure.

When I said it would not be an investigation but a partisan kangaroo court, I was assured by my liberal pals that Republicans would get their say on the committee, even past the presence of Liz Cheney. For Pelosi, according to them, would not be so stupid as to stack the committee and thus wreck even the perception of credibility. And then, there was Wednesday’s news.

Speaker Pelosi rejected the inclusion on the committee of Republican Rep. Jim  Jordan and Republican Rep. Jim Banks. They are Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s choices to serve on the probe. Being the mature serious man that I am, upon hearing this news I called my two pals, told them the news, and proceeded to make loud derisive cackling noises into the phone. Then I hung up without hearing their reply. Then I call cackled again. They stopped picking up after the third time.

Just my opinion? Nope. Even Democrats are not happy. Politico writer Rachael Bade opined, “Pelosi’s move to reject GOP picks for the 1/6 panel is going to be a gift to Kevin McCarthy in the long run. He wanted this panel to look partisan and political. Now it’s definitely going to look partisan and political,” Bade tweeted.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote Pelosi’s action “dooms even the possibility of the committee being perceived as bipartisan or its eventual findings being seen as independent…You can be sure every Republican will use Pelosi’s rejection of their nominees as evidence that she doesn’t want the truth to come out,” he wrote. “Pelosi has handed Republicans a golden issue to rev up their base in advance of the 2022 midterms — and you can bet they will use it.”

McCarthy was angry, yet likely jubilant on the inside. “Speaker Pelosi has taken the unprecedented step of denying the minority party’s picks for the select committee on Jan. 6. This represents something that has not happened in the House before for a select committee, by the historian,” McCarthy said at a press conference.  “It’s an egregious abuse of power. Pelosi has broken this institution. Denying the voice of members who have served in the military – Jim Banks, a Navy veteran who served in Afghanistan,” McCarthy continued. “As well as a leader of a standing committee. Jim Jordan isn’t ranking of just his first committee, he’s done it before.” Liz Cheney, making a real effort to seal her own political doom, sided with Pelosi on this.

As for me and my pals, they’ll get over it. I endured a week of crank calls and texts with numerous happy faces after last November. And I expect to harass them again even worse come next November and after November of 2024. But schadenfreudish phone calls seem old hat to me now. I’m thinking of hiring a skywriter.