Congress Ethics

Crocodile McConnell Cries Crocodile Tears

mitch-mcconnell-ap

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s number one priority in 2010 was ensuring that President Obama is a one-term president — how did that work out? — but he’s very sad that the Senate’s only focus is “the next election.”

“What have we become?” cried Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) during a lengthy floor speech Wednesday afternoon. He lamented the “theatrics and the messaging wars” that he said define and “cheapen” the upper chamber today.

“I’m absolutely certain of one thing: the Senate can be better than it is,” he said.

“We’ve gotten too comfortable with doing everything we do here through the prism of the next election, instead of the prism of duty. And everyone suffers as a result,” the Republican leader said.

I suppose this doesn’t seem quite as mindbogglingly un-self-aware if you view political “theatrics” as a duty and producing policy as “the prism of the next election.”

That is more or less how Republicans govern or, more accurately, fail to govern.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” -Mitch McConnell (2010)