51 Seats Are Not Enough

So today I'd like to talk about the Senate, and Senatorial leadership, and a few showdowns that are coming up that people seem oddly unconcerned about. And I'd really like to talk about Mitch McConnell. Specifically, I'd like to talk about how much I hate him, and how much you should hate him, too.

As the NYTimes reported, the Senate is about to bail on staffing the F.E.C. with competent commissioners, just before the 2008 campaign season really gets ramped up.

This particular story starts with Dubya's deep-seated love for recess appointments, and good ol' Hans Spakovsky. His (and two other) recess appointments are up in January, and the Senate is deadlocked on who gets to fill the spots. What should happen next in any Senate with balls at all is that Majority Leader Harry Reid forces a floor fight with Mitch McConnell.

But he won't. Uh, he definitely won't.

He and McConnell have come to accomodations over FISA and retroactive immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with warrantless wiretapping and have agreed not to run out a 30-hour clock on the motion. Reid is taking the easy way out; there are Democrat senators who'd like to add amendments to strip out retroactive immunity. Reid seems far more concerned about a Republican filibuster lately than on doing the right thing.

The thing is, there's blood in the water and no one seems to be noticing it on the left. McConnell is facing some serious opposition at home. So far he's facing three Louisville millionaires, and a guy who lost the 2006 Dem primary.

Bob Novak said of McConnell on the Immigration Reform bill back in 2007:

"If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty." Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version he supported, he abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of the debate."

Speaking of abandoning his post, what's up with Republicans who dodge military service? From Wikipedia:

The exact circumstances surrounding the discharge remain unknown because McConnell has always refused to discuss them; however, in August 1967, a telegram was sent to the commanding general at Fort Knox (where McConnell was in boot camp) by former Senator John Sherman Cooper, for whom McConnell had previously worked as an intern. The telegram stated that O'Connell was "anxious to clear post in order to enroll NYU. Please advise when final action can be expected." However, no record exists of McConnell ever enrolling - or even applying for admission - into New York University.

Um. Yeah.

Then there's his support for now-indicted KY governor Ernie Fletcher. Even in the midst of the hullaballoo, McConnell felt confident enough to step in front of a television camera and say, "I've never met a finer man than Ernie Fletcher."

The fallout of that one was wide and far-reaching, and eventually compelled Fletcher to fire several of his own appointees to save his own ass.

The guy's nuts on voting, too. He's backed pretty much everything the President has said he should. And even the most cursory scan of his voting record shows exactly how far gone he is. That means anything to do with the rule of law gets the boot, and anything that furthers the role of the executive gets a hearty welcome, and maybe a little Pavlovian-conditioned salivation on the side. Abortion? Bad. Anything that makes the country actually safer? Bad. Anything that furthers fear and hostility and gives the Republicans more power? Good! Anything that punishes poor people, scares Joe Public, and rewards corporate interests? Even better! The one surprise is that he didn't support a constitutional ban on flag burning back in 1995. I guess he had to draw a line somewhere...or maybe he just couldn't read very well back then, who knows?
I'm wondering if I've made the case that McConnell sucks* forcefully enough.

I'll probably write a post on how McConnell runs rings around Reid anytime he feels like it next. That's the flipside of this dismal, ugly, corroded coin.


*His wife is about as evil as he is. It's tangential to mention, and yeah, it's irrelevant and probably unfair, but she really sucks, too. I suppose I say this to offer evidence that shitty people tend to find each other and help each other be even shittier than they could be on their own. Oh, and it loops back, too, since at least one of the mine disasters she presided over was plagued by allegations of corruption and bribery traced directly to her husband's relationship with the mine owner. Stephen Colbert sends this one up better than I ever could.