It’s relatively rare to see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lose his temper with the left’s nonsense, but after partisans like Joe Scarborough and the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank began referring to him as “Moscow Mitch,” an asset to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kentucky Republican decided he’d had it up to here. He took to the Senate floor on Monday to explain why it was inane for the left to accuse him of such things simply because he blocked a Democratic election security bill.
“Last week I stopped Democrats from passing an election law bill through the Senate by unanimous consent, a bill that was so partisan that it only received one Republican vote over in the House,” McConnell said. “My Democratic friends asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that everyone knows isn’t unanimous and never will be unanimous. So I objected.
“Over the last several days I was called unpatriotic, un-American, and essentially treasonous by a couple of left-wing pundits on the basis of bold-faced lies,” he continued. “I was accused of aiding and abetting the very man I’ve singled out as an adversary and opposed for nearly 20 years, Vladimir Putin.”
McConnell said that those remarking on his patriotism knew they were misleading the public.
“These pundits are lying, lying when they dismiss the work that has been done,” he said. “They’re lying when they insist I have personally blocked actions which, in fact, I have championed and the Senate has passed. They are lying when they suggest that either party is against defending our democracy. These theatrical requests happen all the time here on the Senate. I promise that nobody involved, including my friend the Democratic Leader who made the request, actually thought he’d get a Republican Senate to instantly, unanimously pass a bill that got one Republican vote over in the House. It doesn’t make Republicans traitors or un-American. It makes us policymakers with a different opinion.”
Yes, but when you’re talking about left-wing media hacks whose only job is to spike ratings and garner clicks, there’s no such thing as a reasonable policy difference. There is only “you’re with us or you’re an agent of Moscow.”
McConnell doesn’t see the need to take election security away from the states, and he’s absolutely justified in preserving that local power. Nothing the Russians did in 2016 points to the need for Washington control, and to give in just because the Democrats are still contesting the election would only add unwarranted credence to their idiotic claims of “Trump is illegitimate.”
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