Tag Archives: Speaker Mike Johnson

Let Mikey Do It!

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  MAY 28, 2025 

Some are calling him Magic Mike, but I’m not sure that moniker is fitting since it conjures up images of a male stripper.

Others call him Miracle Mike, but according to Wikipedia, that moniker went to a headless chicken in Colorado that became a national sensation 75 years ago. The chicken set a Guinness world record for surviving 18 months without that very important part of the anatomy.

House Speaker Mike Johnson may be flattered, but I expect not comfortable with adulation. He seems like a humble soul, who has a good sense of self, his surroundings, and the job he fell into a year ago when House Republicans fired his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. Speaker Johnson is not a miracle-worker or the greatest magician since Merlin. He is a good leader who inspires others to both lead and follow. He bows to no one in the practice of dealmaking.

The Speaker would be more appropriately cast as a maestro who transposes the discordant sounds of discontent and division into a harmonious symphony, at least long enough to accomplish what he seeks to do in the House.

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The Real Mike Johnson Did Stand Up

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 →

“Not all Republicans are the same.”

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  OCT 27, 2023

Guess who said it.

You don’t like playing games? Okay. Okay.

If you watch the View, you would know. It was Whoopi Goldberg.

Say what!?

Yup. Whoopi. Ms. Goldberg got groans and guffaws from the audience when she said it, according to an account I read. She should have gotten oohs and ahhs. It was a pretty remarkable observation and brave, given the criticism that “all Republicans” engender, especially after the debacle over the Speakership of Kevin McCarthy and the ensuing mud fight to find a replacement. House Republicans finally settled on Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana (how can you go wrong with a name like that?) as the 56th Speaker of the House of Representatives. Continue reading →