Following the election in November, I noted briefly that Darrell Issa’s ascension to ranking member on House Oversight bore watching because he gets off on being difficult and grabbing headlines. A profile from CQ last week finds that he’s really enjoying the new role:

And House GOP leaders are already signaling that they expect Issa to stake out high-profile points of conflict with the White House. “He’s the kind of guy who will charge forward and get to where it leads him,” a figure who will “push the envelope,” said Kevin McCarthy of California, the chief deputy minority whip.

Outside analysts underline the same point: At a time when House leaders such as Minority Whip Eric Cantor are looking inward and assessing longer-term electoral vulnerabilities, more autonomous figures like Issa can be full-time partisans. “You wouldn’t put someone in there if all they wanted to do is talk consensus,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. Tapping Issa for the oversight job “does say something about his party’s faith in his ability to throw a few hand grenades,” he added.

He’s already changed over two thirds of his staff with a focus on investigation, and every week he’s got a fresh outrage with which to whip the Hill into a frenzy. Which seems to suggest specific and more meta themes. For one, despite his efforts to dress up his actions as a vital watchdog protecting the checks and balances in government, Issa’s full political career is a record of naked partisanism, distortions and outright nastiness. To CQ, “Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern contends, for instance, that Issa’s mission is just ‘to tear something apart.'” It’s just who he is, and while that may make him well suited for this job in the narrow sense, it certainly doesn’t carry any nobility when the goal is simply personal victory and aggrandizement.

In the broader sense though, this offers a striking counterpoint to Cantor’s listening tours and Rush’s push to the far fringes of the Right. Issa’s tactics represent probably the only piece of the Republican party that have a shot of being effective right now- wearing down the administration with a thousand paper cuts. And in the process of triumphing on all the ticky tack stuff, Issa slides into a default position of leadership and triumph in the party. If you thought the GOP was petty and vindictive already, well, Issa would kick things to levels rarely seen and ideology would be incidental.

Keeping this administration honest is one thing, and frankly we’re already seeing good signs on accountability. But Issa’s job and his passion is to destroy government’s ability to function and destroy his opponents in the process. It’s a point to watch carefully as Republicans run out of other options for developing feasible counters to Democratic governance.