Matt Gunterman April 21st, 2007

Here’s an easy question to answer: Is Senator Mitch McConnell a fat-cat pharmaceutical boss?

No, he’s not. He’s minority leader of the U.S. Senate. But just because McConnell’s not a fat-cat pharmaceutical boss doesn’t mean that he’s not beholden to them. He does their bidding. He is their tool, an instrument of their profiteering and exploitation of this nation’s sick, elderly, and vulnerable.

Is Senator McConnell a racist? Is he a homophobe? Is he a sexist? Is he a bigot? Is he a xenophobe?

Whatever your own answers to these questions, you’ll have to admit that, as he is to the fat cats, Mitch McConnell is beholden to this nation’s racists, homophobes, sexists, bigots, and xenophobes. They are his base of political support, and as such, when McConnell speaks, he speaks first and foremost to those groups.

Remember, for instance, when things started going from bad to worse with the war in Iraq earlier this year. Sen. McConnell came out and said that if the President’s latest surge didn’t work in the end, it wasn’t the fault of President George W. Bush or McConnell himself. Instead, according to McConnell, if it all fell apart, it was because the Iraqis lacked “the capability to govern themselves there in the capital city.” Notice that McConnell didn’t say that the Iraqis weren’t ready for self-government. He said they weren’t capable of it; they lacked the inate ability. Sen. McConnell made it clear that he believes that Iraqis are simply inferior human beings.

McConnell was speaking to his base. They like to hear this stuff. It rings true to them and every hateful, spiteful, and ignorant thing they hold dear.

Now we have a new chapter in Sen. Mitch McConnell’s racist appeals: his effort to deny the 350,000 African Americans and 41,000 Hispanics in Washington, DC — along with everyone else — full-fledged representation in Congress.

As many, many bloggers have pointed out, the Bush administration — with Karl Rove leading the charge — has done everything it possibly can in the last seven years to disenfranchise ethnic minority voters through allegations of “voter fraud” that doesn’t exist.

Mitch McConnell is joining the White House’s program now, too, by obstructing the effort in Congress to give the District of Columbia a voting seat in the House of Representatives. This seat would almost assuredly go to a Democrat, but the legislation would also create an extra seat for Utah, which would almost assuredly go to a Republican. If the measure were to somehow get around Mitch McConnell in the Senate, President Bush has promised to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

McConnell claims the legislation is unconstitutional, but most scholars disagree with Sen. McConnell’s amateur assessment. Yet, because McConnell is by his very nature a coward, he doesn’t realize that what’s right and what’s constitutional aren’t always one and the same. There’s no need in pointing out the rather obvious examples from history.

The right thing to do is to give the citizens of Washington, DC a legitimate seat in the House.

But Sen. McConnell won’t ever support that.

His base of supporters would go crazier and start foaming at the mouth even more if McConnell allowed the political empowerment of nearly 400,000 non-whites.

• DC House Seat , Mitch McConnell , Racism , Senate Minority Leader , U.S. Senate
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