WE SHOULD BE UPSET THAT THE REPUBLICAN WHO HAD AN AFFAIR WITH AN "ISIS BRIDE" IS QUITTING HIS RACE

Should we feel schadenfreude when we read this about a GOP congressman?

Rep. Van Taylor apologized Wednesday for an affair with an ex-jihadist dubbed the “ISIS bride” by British tabloids and abruptly dropped his bid for a third term, conceding the GOP runoff to rival Keith Self, a former Collin County judge.

The Bulwark's Tim Miller says we shouldn't.

The congressman having the affair with the ISIS bride was the normal candidate in that GOP primary.

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 2, 2022

Josh Marshall has more:

[Tania] Joya ... is an interesting character. She was previously married to a man named John Georgelas who in 2013 moved his family with him to Syria after converting to Islam and working as a headhunter for the Islamic State. You may have seen the headlines back then. He changed his name and became the most well-known American to join and fight for ISIS.

Georgelas died in 2017 and his widowed wife Joya has since renounced her and her husband’s extremism. In fact, Joya reportedly met Rep. Taylor as part of her current work to help rehabilitate former extremists.

If she has genuinely renounced the ideology, which seems to be the case, then it seems to me that this is no one's business outside his family and hers. (But I know: These are Republicans in Texas. And yes, Taylor offered her hush money.) But please note:

... there is yet another layer to this. Taylor was one of just four other Republicans in Texas who voted to certify Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6, a key attack point for his primary challengers.

That's what has certain Texans fist-pumping in response to this outcome.

Van Taylor was one of just two Texas Republicans who supported creating a commission to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th last year. The vote came five months after he supported certifying the results of the presidential election that Trump lost. The twin positions put a target on his back....

A group that opposed him, RINO Reckoning ("a project of Defeating Communism PAC"), literally put a target on a rhino in its logo.

RINO Reckoning also attacked Taylor because he "did not sign [a] Bicameral 'Defund Vax Mandates' letter sent to the Republican leadership," because he didn't attack Anthony Fauci ... and because he voted to remove Confederate monuments from the Capitol.

The GOP candidate who'll advance to the general election, Keith Self, will probably win the seat (it's an R+6 district). He says he "will demand a full forensic audit is conducted in Texas," even though Donald Trump won the state by five and a half points. He also complains that Taylor "voted to strip our nation’s history from the United States Capitol" -- a reference to those Confederate monuments.

So, yes, it would have been better if the guy who had the affair with the "ISIS bride" won the primary.