McCarthy nostalgia is now a real thing. It could have been that McCarthy would have experienced all the same difficulties as Johnson — certainly, he would have experienced a lot of them; this isn’t an easy job. But to take out a deft tactician and prodigious fundraiser for no reason — or as a function of one member’s personal pique — while presenting an image of chaos and basic governing incapacity to the country . . . was not a good idea.