Matt Gunterman April 2nd, 2007

I freely admit that I wholly expected Sen. Mitch McConnell’s appearance on Fox News yesterday to be a rather pedestrian affair.

By the way, before it slips my mind, many thanks to everyone who kept coal on the fire in the comments of the open thread yesterday. I appreciate your help there.

So, if you haven’t heard, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace lobbed another bunker buster of a question to Sen. McConnell yesterday. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s a must-see, and ThinkProgress has all the coverage. This Wallace incident comes on top of Sen. McConnell’s embarrassing performance in January with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, where he caught Sen. McConnell saying the President’s plan had six to nine months to work or else, but found out that McConnell had no idea what “or else” was going to be.

Notice in the video Sen. Joe Biden’s expression when Sen. McConnell’s getting embarrassed. His schadenfreude is priceless.

So, let’s analyze what’s going on here and establish some patterns.

First, what’s clear is that the national spotlight shining on Sen. McConnell is proving that he’s not the political genius his ever-shrinking political base thinks him to be. The man obviously can’t think on his feet very well. He’s just not that intelligent. I mean, look at this exchange from yesterday! Here is a man that simply can’t think outside the talking-points box.

WALLACE: Senator McConnell, my point is that back in 1996, you were saying those White House aides should testify in open hearing. These were White House aides of Bill Clinton, in open hearing under oath.

Why shouldn’t the same rules apply for the Bush White House and people like Karl Rove?

MCCONNELL: And what I’m telling you is the president’s going to make that decision. I was a senator. I was talking about an administration. The president made the decision in 1996, President Clinton, as to how that would be done, and this president’s going to make the same decision and we’ll see how it all works out.

WALLACE: Well, you’re still a senator. So the question is do you call on this president to do the same thing?

MCCONNELL: I’m calling on this president to do what he thinks is appropriate with regard to his aides testifying. What Fred Fielding, the White House counsel, has offered is, I gather, still under discussion as to how and when and under what conditions the White House aides will testify.

This national spotlight is going to show every personal and professional blemish on Sen. Mitch McConnell. It’s going to shine away the mystique. We’re going to see the naked McConnell and it’s not going to be pretty, folks.

Also, think about this: could it be that Republicans broadly are willing to sacrifice Sen. McConnell to ensure the political viability of their party? Aside from the Republican senators that owe Sen. McConnell fealty for his money-grubbing, no-one else in the party likes the man. Could Fox News be hostile territory, not from any sense of journalistic integrity, but because it thinks McConnell has to go to get some new blood in Republican leadership?

It’s all very interesting and juicy stuff!

• Mitch McConnell , Senate Minority Leader , TV Interviews , U.S. Senate
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