PHOTO: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy
The lock on my bathroom room has been broken for… well, I don’t remember when it stopped working.
But since I live alone with my cat, Roscoe, it hasn’t been an issue. Until now.
Roscoe is not interested in my bathroom. He has his own litter box. And I rarely have company. When I do invite friends over, I warn them that the bathroom door doesn’t lock. So they can be prepared.
Also, I don’t leave reading materials in my bathroom, unless it’s rated ‘PG’.
But now, I’m thinking about getting the lock fixed, because of something Representative Kevin McCarthy said recently.
Rep. McCarthy is Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He understands the world of politics much better than I do. Probably, he understands bathrooms better than I do.
But he makes sometimes assumptions about bathrooms that may not be well-founded.
A couple of days ago, a reporter asked Speaker McCarthy about some supposedly classified documents that former president Donald Trump had allegedly been storing in his bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The reporter asked the Speaker:
“What about those [photographs]? Was it a good look, for the former president to have boxes in a bathroom?”
Rep. McCarthy reminded the reporter that the Department of Justice had also found classified documents in President Biden’s garage, dating back to his days as Vice President.
“I don’t know,” said the Speaker. “Is it a ‘good picture’ to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks.”
The Speaker has a point. Some bathroom doors do, indeed, lock. And it’s not a ‘good picture’ to have boxes of classified documents in your garage, unless your garage can be locked. And even then, it doesn’t look good. Especially if your garage opens up all the time.
But to be completely fair to President Biden, a garage is not a bathroom.
As I said, my bathroom doesn’t lock. But my garage does. Also, when my bathroom lock was working, way back when, you had to be inside the bathroom in order to lock it.
So I’m sort of imagining someone going into the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago, and there’s all these boxes of classified documents. But for whatever reason, there’s no toilet paper.
I imagine myself in that position, and I can tell you what I would do.
That sort of thing would never happen in a garage.
And then, let’s say, I did lock the door — while I was in the bathroom, which is a perfectly normal thing to do — and I discover I’m surrounded by boxes full of government secrets. Might I just need some reading material? And not be too concerned about the word “CLASSIFIED” stamped on the cover page?
Also a perfectly normal thing to do.
Now, I’m not saying I’m smarter than Speaker McCarthy. But when your friend stashes classified government documents in his bathroom, wouldn’t you, first, want to ask him if the lock is working?
I would.