Congressional Republicans have finally shown that, yes, there actually is a limit to what they will tolerate from their fellow right-wingers: They are furious at Rep. Madison Cawthorn for his apparently false allegations of cocaine use and orgies among his colleagues.

But even if Cawthorn were telling the truth, the misbehavior he alleges would pale next to what some other GOP members did (and most of the rest are still abetting) regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and other outrages — all of which have drawn a collective shrug from their party.

Cawthorn, the freshman North Carolina Republican and member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, made his incendiary if vague allegations in a recent podcast interview when he was asked whether real-life Washington is anything like the pit of debauchery portrayed in the cable series "House of Cards."

"The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington ... all of a sudden you get invited ... to come to an orgy," answered Cawthorn, who at 26 is the youngest person ever to serve in Congress. "Some of the people (are) leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine right in front of you," he added.

Cawthorn is something of a known fabulist on multiple topics: his disputed accounts of the car crash that left him paralyzed, his misleading claims about having been accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy before that happened, and about training for the Paralympics, and about his education and business background. So, it's no surprise that he ended up somewhat walking back his orgies-and-cocaine story when pressed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy says Cawthorn has "lost my trust" now, and there is talk of expelling him from the Freedom Caucus. These are reasonable responses to what appears to be the maligning of House Republicans with lies from one of their own.

But it's also an interesting window into what offends these folks — and what, apparently, doesn't.

You know who isn't getting blackballed by McCarthy and threatened with expulsion from the Freedom Caucus? Members in good standing like Republican Reps. Paul A. Gosar and Andy Biggs, both of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama, all of whom have been implicated in laying groundwork for the Capitol insurrection. And Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who in a bigoted video rant last year alleged that Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is a terrorist sympathizer. And Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who not only agreed to speak at a white-nationalist rally recently but stayed and spoke even after the crowd chanted its support for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The message is clear: Attack your fellow House Republicans, and you're in trouble. But attack tolerance, decency and democracy itself, and the GOP still has a place for you.

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