Gerth: Mitch McConnell's response to Biden withdrawal shows he's lost any grace he ever had
When Mitch McConnell had his second dissociative episode last year when he froze up during a press conference, one of the first people who came to his defense was not someone you’d expect.
“I just heard, literally, coming out, and Mitch is a friend, as you know, not a joke,” President Joe Biden said. “I know, people don’t believe that’s the case. We have disagreements politically, but he’s a good friend and so I’m going to try to get in touch with him later this afternoon.”
If you expected the same sort of grace from McConnell after Biden, with questions about his own fragility swirling around ever since his disastrous performance at his debate with Donald Trump last month, you’d be sorely disappointed.
“For four years, the American people have faced historic inflation at home, chaos at the border and weak leadership on the world stage. Our nation is less prosperous and less secure than it was in January, 2021. We cannot afford four more years of failure,” McConnell said, in his venomous statement.
Nothing about thanking Biden for his 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president and four more as president, as he stepped away from the election and prepared to step away from the presidency. At least nothing he's said publicly.
Nothing about him being a friend. Nothing about the deals they cut while in the Senate together or when Biden was Barack Obama’s go-to guy when he needed the Senate Republicans on board.
The call to McConnell wasn’t the first time Biden called to check on McConnell. He had done it a month earlier after McConnell froze up at a press conference the first time.
“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell said. It was a reference to an event when Biden had tripped and fallen when his foot got hung up on a sandbag.
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A few months earlier, after McConnell fell at a Washington hotel and suffered a concussion, Biden called on his “friend” and spoke to McConnell’s family. “I think he's going to be all right," the president, who is a much more decent man than McConnell, said.
After Biden's historic decision, where was McConnell's compassion?
But following Biden’s historic decision not to seek reelection, McConnell couldn’t bring himself to utter the first kind word. He couldn’t show any level of compassion.
He couldn’t act like anything but what we have always known him to be — someone so eaten up with politics that he couldn’t show any humanity to someone he has known for nearly 40 years and someone who considered him a friend.
“Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has been busy in recent weeks trying to upend the expressed will of the American people in primary elections across the country,” McConnell went on.
“Washington Democrats have not proven themselves any more capable than the President of delivering the secure borders, safe streets, and stable prices that working families deserve. They are selling open borders, higher prices, climate radicalism, and soft-on-crime policies, and the American people are not buying.”
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There’s plenty there that simply isn’t true. Streets are safer as violent crime and property crime are near historic lows nationally. We have the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world, prices are coming down and border crossings are down to nearly where they were at the end of the Trump administration.
But for McConnell, truth doesn’t seem to matter when he can score political points by attacking someone who showed nothing but grace when McConnell was facing his own mortality.
Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: McConnell's response when Biden dropped out shows lack of compassion
