At worst he's a schlemiel.

"Pfft...as if we needed help sabotaging
America. Nice try Democrats!"

-Kevin McCarthy

So, I'll admit, when I first read that Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat from New York, pulled a fire alarm in order to disrupt the vote on a stop gap measure to keep the government from shutting down I was pissed. After all, the last thing anyone needs is the story to be "Democrats use underhanded means to sabotage America" instead of "Republican shitshow threatens to send the country into an economic death spiral." And then this idiot goes and pulls a stunt like this. But then when it turns out, nuh-uh, no he didn't I was relived.

It turns out he ran into a locked door on his way to the vote and thought that the fire alarm was a release. An idiotic move? Absolutely. Nefarious? Of course not. And yet the headline is almost invariably something like: "Democratic Representative pulls fire alarm during vote to keep the government open." And that's just nonsense.

Above: footage of Bowman pulling the alarm, which, if the situation were
reversed and a Republican did this, we'd be hearing about how it's all a deep-fake
hoax perpetrated by George Soros and the President of Antifa.

At worst Bowman is a schlemiel.

Well, ok, it is factual. Jamaal Bowman is a member of the Democratic Party. He did pull a fire alarm, and he did so during the vote. We're supposed to infer that he was trying to delay, but he pulled the alarm in a whole other building which wouldn't have delayed the vote even even that were his intent. And he voted for the bill. but who's going to click on: "In a rush to keep the government open, well-meaning Democratic Rep. pulls the wrong lever and sets off an alarm?"

Pictured: Rep. Matt Gaetz, the eminently 
punchable face of the Batshit Rabid-Foam
wing of the Republican Party.

But instead it's just something for the GOP to shriek about in their unending quest to try and draw a moral equivalency between a party whose entire platform is homophobic scare-mongering and race-bating dogwhistlery, and one that just wants everyone to have healthcare and books. And it's also worth noting that while Bowman wasn't trying to delay the vote, McCarthy didn't give anyone time to read the bill. Yes, the deadline was approaching, but only because of the rift between the party's Hard-Right and Batshit Rabid-Foam factions.

And not for nothing, but their outrage would come off as a lot less disingenuous if those calling for investigations and charges weren't the same people who cheered on the angry mob that tried to install a real-estate developer as dictator. 

Pictured: that time the Right surrendered the high-ground forever.