Courier-Journal: Mitch McConnell’s senate leadership “impish” and “disturbing”
Matt Gunterman June 15th, 2007
The Louisville Courier-Journal slams the leadership of Senator Mitch McConnell in an editorial today, with particular reference to McConnell’s efforts to save Attorney General Alberto Gonzales but on broader trends as well.
The larger problem? Essentially, it’s that Senator McConnell has decided that if he and his fellow Republicans can just sit out the rest of the Bush administration for another year or so, then the GOP can begin rebuilding and reinvigorating itself around a new presidential candidate. You know McConnell goes to bed ever night telling himself that it can’t get any worse — but Bush has a way of defying expectations, doesn’t he?
It’s a dangerous game to play, really; it’s like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer sees how far he can drive his car without refilling on gas: as such, there is a chance for the thrill of victory for McConnell, but more than likely he and his party are going to be stranded on the side of the road while the rest of the nation passes them by at high speed.
When the Bush administration is said and done, the energy of the GOP will be consumed for years just coming to terms with the meaning and mess of George W. Bush. He will hang around their neck like an albatross for a long, long time, and the Republicans will still have to deal with all the religiously fanatic nutcases that he’s filled the party’s ranks with. How successful can the Republican party be when it’s dominant faction is one that sees the Second Coming around every corner?
Here’s what the C-J had to say:
Serving justice or self?
It is only natural for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to serve as a partisan henchman, but when does it become necessary to forgo impish politics and actually serve with the interest of the country in mind?
Sen. McConnell was successful this week in building a strong enough GOP bloc to avoid a Senate no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. (A motion to end debate passed, 53-38, but required 60 votes.) Or at least he built the illusion of a Republican bloc, because what spoke volumes was the lengths to which Republican senators resorted in order not to defend Mr. Gonzalez. Sometimes what isn’t said is all that anyone needs to hear.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called the Democrats’ push to force Mr. Gonzales from office “political theater” while Sen. McConnell attacked them for wasting time on “a meaningless resolution.”
Although President Bush stood by his man, not a word was uttered in the Senate in defense of Mr. Gonzales’ leadership at the Department of Justice. Why? Because Mr. Gonzales is indefensible.
What has been lost amidst the Republican claims this has been nothing but “political theater” is that Mr. Gonzales’ ethical backbone has become even weaker in recent weeks. While he insists he’s forgotten nearly every executive decision on his watch over the last year, he has been accused of trying to force his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to support illegal secretive wiretappings that Mr. Ashcroft considered unconstitutional. Former Gonzales aides Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson have resigned for their roles in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, all Bush appointees who refused to follow the partisan and legally shaky objectives of the White House.
And just this week, The Washington Post reported, due to Gonzales’ hiring practices, the country’s newest immigration judges are underqualified GOP partisans. Former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, Karl Rove’s former top political lieutenant, were subpoenaed by the Senate in order to find out why the White House was meddling in the work of federal prosecutors.
Almost as disturbing as Mr. Bush’s loyalty to Mr. Gonzales is Sen. McConnell’s characterization of all this as “meaningless.” Mr. Gonzales should have been removed from the Justice Department months ago, though it now appears he could make it through 2008, just like his boss, with very little support or moral clout. And the Republicans’ silent support does nothing but undermine those who actually want the Justice Department to dispense justice.
