Earlier today, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy levied a simple threat – any Republican who agrees to serve on Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th select committee with themselves lose their normal committee assignments.

Naturally, Rep. Liz Cheney defied the warning, likely because she knows she’s got no political future anyway. At this point, leaning into martyrdom will only help her coming payday from some liberal cable news network.

Then there’s Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the attention-seeking anti-Trump figure who desperately pursues the spotlight anywhere he can find it. While Cheney’s descent is more recent, Kinzinger is the original. He’s been tap dancing for MSNBC hits for a long time.

Naturally, that meant that Kinzinger would have some red meat to throw to his couple of followers in his response to McCarthy’s threat. Here’s how that went.

Kinzinger bucks McCarthy over Jan. 6 commission warning: 'Who gives a s—?'https://t.co/aasm0nXnZT

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 1, 2021

Such grace and class. I mean, it’s not like Kinzinger spent the last four years insisting that decorum and decency were everything in politics. Of course, no one who had paid attention to Washington D.C. for more than a fleeting moment ever believed that was true. Trump wasn’t unique. Rather, he was just willing to say the quiet parts out loud, and for that, they hated him.

Regardless, there’s a not-so-small problem with Kinzinger’s response – he was never asked by Pelosi to be on the committee in the first place.

Yes, after years of groveling on left-wing cable news, Kinzinger couldn’t even manage to get an invite to sit at the big boy table. Once again, he was passed over, with all his hard work opposing Trump and simping for the Democrats amounting to nothing. The guy is hated by his own party and marginalized by the other. That’s a tough scene if I’ve ever seen one.

Here’s the thing with all this. In order to stand athwart McCarthy, Kinzinger needs to actually be in a position to defy him. But because he was passed over by those on the left he desperately seeks approval from, his response is irrelevant. He won’t lose his committee assignments as McCarthy threatened because he has no invite to the January 6th committee to accept to trigger such a punishment. This is like yelling at a coach that you don’t care if you get benched when you weren’t in the game in the first place.

Meanwhile, Kinzinger is likely going to get redistricted out of his seat by the very Democrats he’s sought as allies. None of his olive branches have been reciprocated, and when Pelosi was looking for Republicans to turn, she didn’t even think Kinzinger was worth her time. I mean, imagine being passed over for Liz Cheney. That’s gotta sting.