Why Isn’t The Press Running Interference For Mitch McConnell?

It looks like we finally found something we can all agree on. Mitch McConnell’s time in politics has come to a close. Tragically, he is not fit to serve out the remainder of his term.

I’m not going to play the fool’s game of “but he’s only x years older than this or that competent politician.” Henry Kissinger and Thomas Sowell remained sharp well into their 90s. Most people do not. You don’t judge a person’s mental competency solely based on how many years they’ve been alive. You judge based on what you can see.

Everyone seems to understand that the empirical evidence reflects McConnell’s profound mental and physical decline.

But I wonder, where was all this agreement four years ago when Joe Biden, a veritable corpse, was running the entire country?

Behind closed doors, the president was reciting Shakespeare while juggling with his eyebrows. It was only when all the cameras showed up that he turned into a gaffe machine who couldn’t read a teleprompter. That’s a mean case of stage fright for a politician who’s been in the game for 53 years.

And, of course, our skeptical media bought that, no questions asked.

Alex Thompson, a White House correspondent for Politico during the Biden administration, recently co-authored a book detailing the cover-up of Biden’s mental decline. Conveniently, this book comes long after the decline was obvious, and Biden is no longer running for office.

Thompson has insisted that the media was simply “lied to” about the president’s mental state. News flash: if I can see the decline on my television, it shouldn’t take you five years to figure it out when it’s quite literally your entire job to track his affairs.

What kind of media waits for the White House’s permission before holding it accountable? But don’t worry, they’re here now to bravely stand for the truth. As usual, they’re a day late and a dollar short.

And then there was a cadre of Biden’s fellow Democrats. In a debate with Ron DeSantis, California Governor Gavin Newsom (one of the top Democratic contenders for president in 2028) insisted that the president was perfectly sharp and on top of everything.

Would — or should — an aspiring president take at face value that “behind closed doors,” Chinese President Xi Jinping has no plans to invade Taiwan, he’s simply looking to grab a beer with Lai Ching-te? And if not, which means he was lying, why should the American people place their trust in a man who lies through his teeth about something as consequential as the mental state of their own president?

So which is it? Is he too foolish to be president or too dishonest? Of course, nobody is asking this question. It’s much more interesting to keep beating the dead horse that is McConnell’s competency.

This is not a matter of respect for the statesman that Joe Biden used to be. The squirrely nature of that characterization aside, respect does not demand dishonesty.

Mitch McConnell was perhaps the most effective legislator of my lifetime. He played an instrumental role in seating a Republican majority on the court. He forced significant concessions from the Democratic majority during the Obama administration (including dropping the socialized insurance option) and blocked progressive climate legislation.

He guided the clown show that is the congressional Republicans into confirming three conservative Supreme Court Justices and 54 appeals court justices in a single presidential term, orchestrated the passage of 2017 tax reform, and spearheaded one of the only unanimous consequential legislative packages in modern history.

His legacy is unmatched.

Such is my tribute to his tremendous influence and my respect for the great man. But he’s too old to be in office. To pretend otherwise would not be an act of respect towards him, but an act of disrespect towards his constituency.

When I last saw Senator McConnell, he required the assistance of several men simply to move in and out of the chamber. He never spoke a word despite being addressed directly by several other Senators. This was shortly before his recent hospitalization.

But McConnell is taking hits left and right from the media. And therein lies the distinction: left and right. The conservative press never tried to run interference for the man, and they certainly never tried to invalidate legitimate depictions of his decline.

In 2023, MS NOW published an op-ed insisting that McConnell was unfit to serve and that he step down immediately. They were joined in their concerns by the National Review, one of the most prominent outlets on the American right, which called for McConnell to step down from leadership positions. 

Only when Biden decided to shoot himself in the foot on live television in front of the entire country did it start to become apparent that he was a lost cause, and the media started to turn on him. After years of lying to the American people, it was no longer taboo for Thompson to publish his book.

As members of the press, our first responsibility is to the American public. A press that shirks that responsibility for political gain disgraces the very people it’s meant to serve.