I congratulate Charles Hurt on the insight in his Commentary piece “McCarthy’s path forward that even Republicans couldn’t screw up” (Web, Jan. 5). Mr. Hurt’s discussion of the recent fight among House Republicans brings home that we do, indeed, live in a democracy.

Unfortunately, some have lost sight of this fact due to frustration over last week’s GOP feud. Nobody ever said democracy was pretty. While I can understand the vexation the House chaos caused, among the McCarthy holdouts’ demands were that members be granted enough time to read the bills on which they are meant to vote. Well, that seems quite reasonable to me.

In the end, the situation is best summed up in a quote often attributed to 19th-century Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck: “To maintain respect for both sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.” 



JOSEPH P. SMITH III

Annandale, Virginia 

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