Cocaine Mitch
I spend a good deal of time here (and elsewhere) bitching about the GOP and its adherents, the lamentations of the spurned lover mostly. I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about most professional Republicans, and I cannot count the ways that I’ve allowed myself to be let down by them in the past six years. My fault.
But one—who occasionally disappoints me—continues to earn my loyalty. Mitch McConnell. I’m sorry, but I really, really, like the dude.
First, he is doing the job that I think he was created to do, and that is to be the leader in the Senate of the GOP. Whether in the minority or the majority, he is a master of that chamber and a dedicated steward of its prerogatives. As opposed to the show-ponies around him, he doesn’t want to be President and from what I can see, he never has.
Second, I think he genuinely believes Donald Trump to be an idiot, and he continues to say the right things about the January 6th insurrection. Even better, he’s said the right things about January 6th from the get go. Now—do I wish he’d been as anti-Trump as me for the last six years? Why yes, yes I do. But then he would likely not be the Senate GOP Leader, and could indeed be sitting home in Kentucky retired and bored. He plays the game better than anyone, and the GOP is very fortunate to have him.
This quote pretty much sums Cocaine Mitch (I don’t know how or why he got this name, I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do). In it, a reporter asks about Trump’s ongoing effort to have McConnell replaced as GOP Senate leader, especially as it looks increasingly promising that he’ll return to the Majority Leader in January 2023:
"Every reporter in town, including, I'm sure, you, have been probing to find one for months, right?" he said, alluding to the possibility of finding a Republican senator who agrees with Trump and wants to oust McConnell. "Have you found one?"
No Senate Republican has announced feeling such a way, writes the Examiner. "That's the answer to your question," McConnell said.
I remain hopeful that a GOP emerges that is capable of producing conservative policy options AND which is not a personality cult to a Queens liberal. It doesn’t happen without Mitch.
Some Apparently Very Important Things I’m Having a Hard Time Caring About
A lot of stuff obsesses the American news/sports/entertainment/cultural scenes. Here is a partial list of some of the things that seem important but that I spend little time pondering.
Joe Rogan. I’m not sure I would have recognized his face, voice, or schtick prior to this kerfuffle with his podcast overlords. I don’t listen to his podcasts, I have no desire to, I don’t care if Neil Young doesn’t like being on the same service with him, and I don’t care if Rogan has said things that make other people angry. That’s America. Deal with it.
Canadian Truckers. I understand that there are some truckers in Canada protesting a number of COVID-related policies in that country, and they seem to be using the size and number of their vehicles to cause inconvenience to others (Canadians). Were I to have a view on this subject, I might begin with wondering if these truckers would be quite the darlings they are in the United States if their cause was “Black Lives Matter”, and then I’d probably think that it must be a giant pain in the ass for people in Canada, and then I’d probably conclude that I wouldn’t be in favor of what the truckers are doing if they tried it here for virtually any cause. I tend to like being able to get where I’m going expeditiously.
The Academy Awards. I am reliably informed that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees for their annual awards show. I have about as much interest in this as I do the Tony Awards, and I am increasingly of the view that Hollywood is about as relevant as Broadway.
The Olympics. We’ve been over this before, but I’m just not that into the Olympics. I’m especially not into the Olympics when the coverage seems to focus on American athletes who for whatever reason do not perform well in their sport—there is in these stories the whiff of entitlement—but this, boys and girls, is why we play the games.
This.
Twitter Hall of Fame
Rep. Luria is a steadfast pro-Navy, seapower advocate who knows of what she speaks. This is sublime:
Much obliged!
The only thing I know about Joe Rogan I learned some 10-15 years ago - he believes (or is at the very least extraordinarily open to the idea that) the moon landing was faked. I then decided to not pay any attention to the guy from then on.
"Cocaine Mitch" was coined by a lunatic GOP Senate primary candidate from WV who supported a conspiracy theory about Mitch and his wive Eleanor Chao fronting a Chinese cocaine-smuggling operation or somesuch. It was a marvelous gift to McConnell from a guy who finished 3rd in a GOP primary.