Let’s all say this together, just to see how it sounds:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Savor it. Sip it slowly, like fine Kentucky Bourbon.
But keep Georgia on your mind. Raise your glass to the Peach State for this hump-day, McConnell’s “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” (Apologies to Judith Viorst.)
We’re not supposed to revel in the misfortunes of others. But go ahead. Moscow Mitch merits your schadenfreud.
“Assuming the results we now expect, Wednesday Jan. 6, 2021 will be the worst day of #MitchMcConnell’s long and fetid career,” tweeted the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman last night. (A veteran journalist, Fineman started his lengthy and distinguished career as a Louisville Courier-Journal scribe.)
“Fetid” is American English. I prefer the British foetid. Somehow, the word conveys much more malodor.
Foetid works just as well for Donald Trump, whose lap McConnell has obediently warmed for the last four years.
McConnell happily sold his shriveled soul to the worst president this country has ever endured, a boor who has pandered non-stop to the worst in the body politic: racism, sexism, misogyny, nativism, homophobia and religious intolerance.
No matter, millionaire McConnell has always kept his eye on the prize: advancing his personal political and economic fortunes. He eagerly made himself sycophant-in-chief to the bigot-in-chief. Together, they formed a new consortium: Grasping-Grifters-R-Us.
Journalist Alec MacGillis aptly titled his 2014 book about McConnell The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell.
Early on, MacGillis wrote, McConnell concluded “that his own longevity in Washington trumped all – that he would even be willing to feed the public’s disillusionment with its elected leaders if it would increase his and his party’s odds of success at the polls. In the contest of cynical striving versus earnest service, Mitch McConnell has already won.”
Now he’s lost, at least for two years. Who knows? The Senate GOP caucus might even ditch Mitch as minority leader.
So, fellow Kentuckians, relax and pour yourself another one. Two fingers is about right.
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