Joe Sonka August 17th, 2007

(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

Lt. Col. Andrew Horne was on MSNBC last night, speaking about the 26-year high in suicides rates among soldiers. It is an absolute tragedy the way our government has treated our soldiers, those willing to give their lives in order to protect our country. From a government that started the war on political calculation and deception, to the abysmal planning and comprehension of the type of warfare our troops would be faced with, to the stubbornness of our president and Congress to admit their errors and set up an exit strategy, to the continual deployment of soldiers for their FOURTH tour of duty already. They deserved better.

And Mitch McConnell has been there rubber-stamping Bush’s folly the entire way. Filibustering timetables, and even worse, filibustering the Webb Amendment to give our troops the proper rest and rotation between tours of duty that they deserve. This is what is causing so much strain on our troops. They are continually torn away from their families in order to be thrown into the middle of a religious civil war in intense and confusing urban warfare. The stress this has caused is just staggering. Last year 99 active duty soldiers in the Army killed themselves and over 900 tried to kill themselves.

But Mitch McConnell would rather filibuster legislation to restore proper troop rotation. Sick.

And once again, it’s great to see a prominent KY public figure standing up for our troops. Kudos to Horne. I really wish he would have some more help from our public officials.

• 2008 KY U.S. Senate Race , Andrew Horne , Filibuster , George W. Bush , Iraq War , Mitch McConnell , TV Interviews , VoteVets , War
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Matt Gunterman July 21st, 2007

As The Politico put it:

Reid’s counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) leads the way on CNN’s “Late Edition.” With McConnell fuming after the all-nighter, expect to hear as much venom as the soft-spoken Kentuckian can muster.

Late Edition airs 11pm ET.

• Mitch McConnell , TV Interviews
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Matt Gunterman May 14th, 2007

I was in the process of moving into a new apartment on Sunday (it’s super, thanks for asking) and so didn’t get a chance to watch Senator Mitch McConnell on CNN’s Late Edition, but our beloved-by-no-one senator did manage to get himself featured on DailyKos for what he said there.

Specifically, this quote:

“I don’t know what their problem is but this country has made an enormous investment in giving the Iraqis a chance to have a normal government after all of these years of Saddam Hussein and his atrocities,” he said.

Citing media reports, McConnell said some lawmakers in Iraq’s parliament wanted a vote to ask the United States to leave.

“I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we’ll be glad to comply with their request,” he said.

I’m sort of astonished myself. Did Mitch McConnell just tell us all that the Iraqi parliament is the determining force — The Decider — on a matter so crucial to our nation’s security (so saith the Bush administration).

I mean, seriously, listen to what the man said. We’ve been fighting this war to, take your pick, oust Saddam/bring democracy to the Middle East/defeat Al Qaeda/to keep the terrorists occupied in Iraq so they don’t swim across the ocean and get us here at home.

So, Senator McConnell, you have just told us that you believe that, even if it will be as disastrous to our national security as the Bush administration says it will be, you will get our military forces out of Iraq on the whim of the Iraqi parliament, which you have spent the last week calling a bunch of stupid idiots. No matter what the president says or what his generals say, you believe the determining factor is the Iraqi parliament. No matter what.

In other words, Senator McConnell, you believe that the Iraqi parliament has more say over the direction of this nation’s national security than the Democrats that the American people put in control of Congress last year. You will obey the wishes of the Iraqis, but you deride the will of the American people via the Democrats they elected.

Is that a “moronic birds of a feather (U.S. Republicans & Iraqi parliament) stick together” sort of philosophy on your part?

• Iraq War , Mitch McConnell , TV Interviews
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Terri Whitehouse April 10th, 2007

In a Media Matters story, Kathleen Henehan reports that Murray Energy Corp. CEO Robert Murray openly mocked Al Gore on CNN’s The Situation Room. CNN correspondent Carol Costello says of Murray and his stance on Gore’s climate change agenda:

If all of these emissions controls are being put into place all at one time, he fears that’ll be too expensive for companies to absorb. And what happens when that happens? They lay off workers.

Indubitably! Because everyone knows that the well-being of their employees is always the number one priority of coal companies. Am I right, ya’ll? No? Well how the hell was I supposed to know that? It is CNN after all, it’s not like they have the resources and qualified journalists to research topics and guests prior to filming or anything. If I wanted to do homework I wouldn’t watch TV.

Henehan rebuts:

Despite Murray’s purported sympathy for miners, the Pittsburgh office of the National Labor Relations Board issued a formal complaint against Murray and an associate in 2001 because they “[t]hreatened Union officers and its employees with reprisals for publicizing the labor dispute between the parties” and “[t]hreatened its employees with the loss of jobs, and the loss of wages and benefits if they failed to select new Union officers and because of their support for the Union,” according to a 2002 United Mine Workers Journal article.

But wait, it gets even grosser, says Henehan:

An October 20, 2006, article in Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader described Murray as “a huge donor to Republican senators” and reported on a meeting at a Mine Safety and Health Administration [MSHA] office in which “inspectors confronted him [Murray] about safety problems at his mines.” During the meeting, Murray reportedly made reference to his connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and McConnell’s wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao: “Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials … Murray said: ‘Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss,‘ according to notes of the meeting.” The article added: “Murray, in a recent interview, denied that he referred to McConnell ’sleeping with’ Chao.”

I think I need to take a shower now. Full text of the Media Matters report can be found here.

• Al Gore , Climate Change , Elaine Chao , Mitch McConnell , Money-Grubbing , Secretary of Labor , Senate Minority Leader , TV Interviews
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Matt Gunterman April 2nd, 2007

Press release from Americans United for Change:

Mitch McConnell loses touch with the 61 percent of Kentuckians who oppose failed Bush-Cheney policy in Iraq

Senate Minority Leader and Obstructionist-in-Chief McConnell responds to new Americans United for Change ad calling on him to stop blocking change in Iraq by citing support from people of Kentucky for failed Bush-Cheney ‘stay the course’ policy which polls show does not exist

Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change challenged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to today for remarks the Senator made on the April 1 broadcast of Fox News Sunday claiming his support for the failed Bush-Cheney policy in Iraq is not out-of-step with constituents. Senator McConnell was reacting to a new Americans United for Change ad launched in Kentucky last week calling on him stop blocking change in Iraq. Senator McConnell ignored a recent Courier Journal poll showing 61 percent of Kentuckians oppose the Bush-Cheney ‘stay the course’ policy of sending 20,000 more U.S. troops into harm’s way to police a religious civil war. You may view Senator McConnell’s remarks here.

RHETORIC:

Kentucky’s senior senator defended his stance on the war in Iraq after the launch of a liberal group’s ad campaign criticizing him.

Interviewed by Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said his support for President Bush’s war policy is not out-of-step with constituents. [Associated Press, 4/2/07]

REALITY:

According to a Courier Journal poll conducted in February 2007, a large majority of Kentuckians disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the war and oppose his planned escalation. 60 percent of respondents disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war in Iraq, and 61 percent said they oppose Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. 52 percent said they want McConnell to oppose Bush’s planned escalation, in the Senate. [Courier Journal, 2/20/07; 3/3/07]

“Either Senator McConnell doesn’t read one of the largest papers in his state which pointed out recently that a significant majority of Kentuckians do not, in fact, support the Bush-Cheney ‘stay the course’ policy in Iraq — or he chooses to ignore it as the leading voice of opposition in the Senate to a new direction in Iraq,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United for Change. “Either way, Senator McConnell has clearly lost touch with the people of Kentucky. Perhaps losing touch is one of the unfortunate trappings of becoming the head cheerleader for Bush’s failed policies and becoming the chief obstructionist to change in Washington.”

The new ad ‘Wrong’ launched last week is just ‘phase 1’ of a broader campaign Americans United for Change is launching against the obstructionist-in-chief Mitch McConnell called ‘McConnell Watch,’ which seeks to hold the Senator accountable for Standing in the Way of a forward looking, middle class economic agenda and a responsible redeployment of our troops from Iraq and out of the crosshairs of a civil war. McConnell’s use of procedure and other tactics to delay and obstruct key votes and debate on these issues – issues on which the majority of American’s agree that change is vital – is inexcusable. Most recently, Senator McConnell voted against key legislation which sets a date certain for the responsible redeployment of troops out of harm’s way in Iraq within 120 days of enactment with the goal of having only a limited number of troops remaining in the country by March 31st, 2008. The bill passed by a 51-47 margin in the U.S. Senate and represented the most historic and significant vote on U.S. Iraq policy since the vote to authorize the war in 2002. McConnell will continue to obstruct progress on these and other issues with impunity unless he is held accountable.

• Iraq War , Mitch McConnell , Opinion Polls , TV Interviews
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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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