McConnell Weasels Out - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
McConnell Weasels Out
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Overnight, I actually was thinking of slightly modifying my post yesterday taking Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to task. I felt like maybe I had been a little too hard on him, in one respect. You see, my usual rule is to harshly criticize others on the right only when they violate ethics, or when they double-cross or utterly abandon their allies, or, most usually, when they themselves attack conservatives or portray conservatives, tacitly, in the same terms the left does — wackos, extremists, etc. McConnell had done none of those things. Bad tactics, and even heavy-handed insistence on bad tactics while threatening retaliation against conservatives who don’t play “team ball,” are worthy of criticism, but not on their own worthy of criticism as harsh as I gave McConnell yesterday. What made me feel comfortable doing it, though, was that his failures on health care are so much a part of a pattern, and his disdain for conservatives’ preferred strategies and tactics so longstanding, that in toto I thought they rose (or sank) to a level that made them the rough equivalent of Lindsay Graham actively insulting conservatives by callng us bigots, etc.

But, as I said, I had second thoughts. Here’s why: Because at least McConnell has indeed been working very very very hard at the strategy he did choose. Even though he is/was wrong, dead wrong, terribly wrong in choosing the strategy and tactics he chose, he at least was giving his best effort to the fight. So, maybe, I thought, I should modulate my criticism.

Well, as Fagin said in Oliver Twist, I think I better think it out again. I was right the first time. No modulation is needed. Again, from Red State: McConnell surrenders. Rather than forcing the Dems to the utter edge, for a nighttime vote on Christmas Eve, McConnell has agreed to let the vote go forward early that morning, in order to get everybody out of there before an ice storm.

This is pitiful, or rather Pitiful with a capitl “P.”  If it is so important to the Dems to get this done before Christmas, well, then, make them suffer for it. On the other hand, if the Dems want to get out of town before the ice storm, then make them do so without passing this Obamacare bill. Make it THEIR tough choice. Make THEM face the consequences of not being able to get out of town.

Well, yeah, the GOP says, but what about the poor Republican staffers? Shouldn’t they get to go home?

In a word: NO. Not if it will mean the difference between the Senate passing this thing before going home to face their constituents, or not passing it before facing their constituents at Christmas. Sorry, Charlie. Some things require sacrifice. I was a staffer on the Hill for five years. I knew what I signed up for. Staffers are often unsung heroes, to be sure, and so many of them have done such yeoman’s work on all this that they deserve our thanks. But thanks do not equal giving leave to abandon the fight at such a time. This is the domestic political fight of our very lifetimes. It should be taken to the mat, to the breaking point, or to whatever other cliche applies.

If the Senate gets caught in town for Christmas, that would be Reid’s fault. He is the one, not the GOP, who insisted on passing this before Christmas, before adequate reflection, before facing costituents. For him to do so even if icy sleet is coming down and killing Christmas plans would be a powerful symbol to the public of how unreasonable Reid and the Dems are being. Or at least, that s how it should have been portrayed.

Instead, McConnell caved like an injured puppy trying to escape a grizzly bear. The vote will be early in the morning on the 24th. It will be a formality. No drama. No symbolism. Just capitulation.

So yes, that makes him a loser.

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