"Mitch McConnell" and compassion: no results found

By Ida Tarbell
Washington Bureau with Meta-content Generator A.J. Liebling

The spectacle of decrepit Republican Senator and long-time reactionary powerhouse Mitch McConnell falling to pieces on live television has engendered a number of half-assed reactions from the usual suspects unwilling to state the obvious truth: this decompensating old tosser is unfit for office, or anything else other than serving as Elaine Chao's love machine.  

Mitch is not looking so spry these days

Our personal favorite came from former Republican plug-ugly and rabble-rouser, now doing business as one of our Wonderful Republican Allies, Charlie Sykes:

And I – I mean, I hope people react with nuance. I hope they react with compassion. But this is kind of a warning shot that that when you have people, you know, who have health problems and who have decided not to step aside, there can be these kinds of difficulties. And and so I, I hope that people will react with restraint to this. But we don’t live in an age of either nuance, restraint, or compassion, do we?

We sure don't, Charlie. For those of you who are unable or unwilling to recall the sordid pasts of our newly-minted allies (pretty much all of you), here's a handy reminder from the chronicler of their misdeeds, Mr. D. Glass:

In 2016 Sykes provided nearly unlimited airtime to conservative court candidate Rebecca Bradley after writings in which she revealed her virulent homophobia, compared birth control to murder and suggested women could be blamed for their date rape were publicized.

The broadcast behavior of Sykes was particularly despicable on issues of race and poverty. He used his show to broadcast a blatantly racist video mocking food stamp recipients and has referred to the First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, as “mooch.”... 

Not hearing a f***ton of compassion from Old Charlie. But what the hell this is America and anyone no matter how slimy or vicious should be able to reinvent themselves, as least as a useless taking head on MSNBC.  (This is the Nicolle Wallace rule, named after the former shill for Iraq warmonger and torture-lovin' President George W. Bush.)

We'd rather look at whether the intended object of our compassion ever showed even a flicker of that worthy emotion for any other human being. Ever.

You'll be shocked to know that our search engines weren't a lot of help:

It turns out that's an understatement.  

Let's go a million years back in American history when 26 little kids and their teachers were massacred at Sandy Hook by someone who borrowed a high-powered assault weapon from his mother.  Who could fail to be moved by the anguish of the survivors who had to identify their children and loved ones from their backpacks, because the victims had been torn to shreds by the military-grade weaponry?  Hint: the answer rhymes with “Snitch Shmeconnell:”

in January 2013 — less than month after Sandy Hook —... after Obama signed 23 executive orders on guns in response to the tragedy that left 20 kindergartners dead — McConnell recorded a robocall and sent it out to gun owners in his state.

“President Obama and his team are doing everything in their power to restrict your constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” McConnell said in the recording. “Their efforts to restrict your rights, invading your personal privacy and overstepping their bounds with executive orders, is just plain wrong.”

The Republicans boasted of his post Sandy Hook compassion

McConnell also refused a meeting with the Sandy Hook families, according to someone familiar with the request, ...But eventually, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) negotiated a modest bipartisan background checks bill, known as Manchin-Toomey. ...

When Manchin-Toomey finally came to the Senate floor for a vote in April 2013, McConnell pushed his conference to oppose the bill, which ultimately failed 54 to 46, falling short of the 60 votes needed for passage. ...

Jesse Benton — a conservative activist who managed Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign and who McConnell enlisted to manage his 2014 one — said that McConnell at the time “said something to me like, ‘I hope you know I’m not planning on supporting any of this crap.' ”

Protecting future generations of schoolchildren – like those in Uvalde, Texas and Parkland, Florida – from being slaughtered in their schools?  To Sen. Compassion, it's all “crap.”

What about compassion for the millions of Americans who had to face illness, possibly mortal, without health insurance, or the tens of thousands who died unnecessarily every year because they couldn't afford to pay for lifesaving care?  What did Sen. Compassion say about universal health care, after it had been in effect for seven years and its life-saving benefits were apparent to even the meanest intelligence?  Let's ask CBS News:

That would have worked out great for the at least 18,000,000 who relied on Obamacare to protect their health.

Just to complete the compassion hat trick, what about the millions of women who want to terminate their pregnancies, including those who conceived as a result of rape or incest?  How much compassion did Mitch have for them?

Thanks to Mitch's tireless efforts to pack the Supreme Court with extremist forced-birthers, that bent Court took away a woman's right to control her own body last year, leaving women in red states the choice of bearing an unwanted child or returning to the bad old days of coathangers.  Was he sensitive to their pain?  According to NPR he was concerned about basically anything else:

The desperate women, the unwanted babies born into poverty, the septic abortions, the lives ruined – to Compassionate Mitch, it would all come out in the political wash.

So what's the point?  It's not to suggest that we publicly mock Mitch for his disability (the way the most recent Republican president did to a reporter with a serious neurological disorder).  It's to turn the spotlight on who is entitled to compassion in Republican America and who isn't.

To Republicans and their apologists, like former insult comic Charlie Sykes, compassion is reserved for white men.  He's not alone in that view.  Salami-lovin' David Brooks recently condemned us coastal elites for showing insufficient compassion to white bigots.  And never Oregon Governor Nick Kristof recycled the same tiresome nonsense just last week.

Maybe we'd be better off if we directed our compassion to the desperate and hopeless who dwell in our midst.

Except for Ron DeSantis.