As questions about Senator Mitch McConnell’s health remain unanswered amid his extended absence from Congress, the longtime politician’s hometown releases a “pre-obituary.”
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McConnell was rushed to a hospital after an incident at his Washington, D.C. residence. Following calls for an update about his well-being, the senator posted a photo of himself. He said he had been recovering from a fall and would return to Congress soon.
However, he has since been silent, and his staff has not answered any questions regarding his health.
In a recently published story, longtime columnist of Louisville’s The Courier, Joseph Gerth, writes scathing remarks about McConnell.
“Unlike Nixon, McConnell never paid for his sins that have damaged our nation’s trust in government, destroyed the country’s ability to have meaningful dialogue and cemented our nation’s politics as an arena in which winning is the only thing that matters,” Gerth writes. “
The columnist continues by writing, “In fact, for all of Nixon’s flaws and crimes, he proved that the system worked as he was held accountable for what he had done. It took real leadership to do that though — Republican Sens. Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Rep. John Rhodes essentially forced him to resign.”
Gerth called the fall of Nixon a “triumph for our country.”
“It’s hard to imagine McConnell ever having the guts or the desire to protect the nation like Goldwater,” he continued. “Scott and Rhodes did that day in 1974 when they went to the White House and told Nixon it was over.”
Gerth Says Not Everything McConnell Did Was ‘Bad’
However, Gerth did note that he’s not saying everything McConnell did was “bad.”
“He stood forcefully for the ability to burn flags as a distasteful but protected exercise in free speech,” Gerth wrote. “And he brought money back to Kentucky much like the late Senate Democrat Robert Byrd did in West Virginia.”
Gerth then noted, “He claimed $38 million in unappropriated dollars to help build the Parklands in Louisville two decades ago and was instrumental in getting the money needed to build a companion to the Brent Spence Bridge between Covington and Cincinnati.”
Gerth also wrote that McConnell was the “leading force” in pushing for the tobacco buyout. This move sent billions of dollars to Kentucky. It also notably protected the state’s farmers when the tobacco industry price supports went away.
“And he rebuilt the Republican Party in Kentucky,” Gerth wrote. “Taking it from a party that had just a fraction of the number of voters as the Democrats to a dominant party in the state over the 42 years he was in office.”
The columnist pointed out that McConnell will only be a “footnote” in history, despite his achievements.
“What he’ll be remembered for is two things that have done lasting damage to the country and its politics,” Gerth wrote. “First is his cynical and hypocritical manipulation of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process that over a four-year period shifted the court from a center-right body to a far-right body that overturned 60 years of case law on civil rights and nearly a century of law that empowered Congress to check a president’s power.”
Gerth declared that McConnell, who once boasted that he split with his party in 1964 after voting for Lyndon Johnson, had “more guts as a young man than he had as an old man.”