Republicans never made it a secret they wanted Jim Jordan to be one of their nine members on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The panel’s hearings will determine whether President Trump’s behavior warrants impeachment, and Jordan has clearly defined himself as the person who will go toe-to-toe against any and all of Trump’s critics.

His unflinching loyalty actually comes to a fault, we believe. Yet it is exactly what’s wanted by those who voted him into office seven times in the highly conservative 4th Congressional District, which snakes all the way from central Ohio to the shores of Lake Erie. It’s been called a district where the name of a potted plant could win an election as long as the plant’s name had an “R” beside it. The 4th District has voted Republican in all but 16 years since the Civil War.

While Jordan is beloved by most in his home district, he’s loathed elsewhere. The accusations against him are many: He’s been criticized for being bombastic, too combative, being accusatory, playing up to the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs of the world, and even for not wearing a suit or sport coat to hearings – on Wednesday and Friday, Jordan showed up to the impeachment hearings wearing his trademark look: shirtsleeves and a yellow tie.

What people don’t understand about Jordan – and probably why he’s such a darling of the Republican’s right wing — is that Jordan doesn’t just drink the conservative Kool-Aid, he manufactures it. There’s nothing wish-washy about him, which in itself is unusual for almost any politician inside the Beltway.

Twelve years in Washington has not changed the 55-year-old Jordan. If anything, it has invigorated him to the point where he is known as the conscience of the GOP’s conservative wing. That at times has come with a price, even from inside his own party.

In 2013, Jordan and 150 other Republicans broke with House Speaker John Boehner to oppose a compromise to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families earning less than $450,000. Jordan voted against it because it raised taxes on upper-income Americans and contained puny budget cuts. Later, he joined a group of conservative Republicans to torpedo a House Republican leadership plan to provide health-care coverage for people with pre-existing health conditions.

Some Ohio Republicans were so irritated with his resistance to compromise on both issues that they briefly toyed with eliminating Jordan’s congressional seat during the 2011 redistricting battles.

As recently as the past two weeks, Jordan had to again defend himself against accusations that he had knowledge of the perversions facilitated by Dr. Richard Strauss when Jordan worked as an assistant wrestling coach at The Ohio State University. Is it a coincidence the claims by a wrestling referee came just before the impeachment hearings began? You be the judge. …

You can bet Jordan will continue to have strong support across the 4th District as the impeachment process continues next week and beyond.

— The Lima News; Online: https://bit.ly/2KzG8Sp