What a turnabout. Amid a “humiliating” 15 ballots to be elected speaker in January, the press insisted Mr. McCarthy was crippled, the token head of a “ragged GOP” stumbling “through the wilderness,” assuming a speakership that would be a “nightmare” as it failed to manage “MAGA radicals,” “rebels” and “anarchy.” As recently as mid-April, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer smirked on the sidelines, chiding Mr. McCarthy not to “bother with partisan wish lists” given that he lacked the GOP votes to pass them.

The dynamic changed entirely one week later, when the Californian got his four-vote majority to deliver the only debt-ceiling bill in town, forcing the White House to the table. That was the master stroke, and it’s worth dissecting how Mr. McCarthy did it. Because it wasn’t Lady Fortune or a sudden outbreak of GOP kumbaya. It was a deliberate, well-considered strategy that required hard work.