Madison Cawthorn – same old thing

Madison Cawthorn is back in the news, this time over a nude video that came out early this morning. But with this latest release, his opponents have destroyed their effectiveness. After every other attempt to embarrass him, one more item can’t make much difference.

The latest Madison Cawthorn news

Regular readers can click here for all Madison Cawthorn news on CNAV.

Three sources – Newsweek, The Daily Beast and WRAL-TV – have the latest. The TV station reports that American Muckrakers PAC – we’ve heard from them before – had video of Cawthorn nude and simulating some kind of sex act in front of another person. Cawthorn replied at once via Twitter:

Years ago, in this video, I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny.

We were acting foolish, and joking.

That’s it.

And that’s as good a response as anyone can make. As CNAV has said before, Madison Cawthorn seems to have led a careless life before he suddenly ran for Congress. He remains today its youngest member, barely of Constitutional age.

The Daily Beast story is more serious. It accuses him of letting a member of “senior staff” accept too much income from an outside source. The reporting seems as abstruse as that of the Whitewater allegations against Bill and Hillary Clinton in the last century.

More to the point, Cawthorn posted an eight-minute video on his Twitter account, laying everything on the line.

Don’t let the swamp of Washington dissuade or distract you from sending a warrior back to Washington.

Good advice

CNAV sees very little in either of these stories to change our view of this man. He did some foolish things, but not half as foolish as some other Members of Congress have done (in office!). Tellingly, he has never hurt anyone.

More telling still: let’s recall a salient position he took recently regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He voted against a symbolic and unconstitutional bill of attainder against “Russian oligarchs.” That makes him one of the few Members of Congress who hasn’t caught war fever. Congress needs more like him, and can’t afford to lose him.

So if crass and foolish videos are all that American Muckrakers or anyone else has on him, it’s not enough. Or it shouldn’t be. Only voters in his new district can decide.