No room to lecture

Sen. Mitch McConnell gives new meaning to the words “partisan” and “hypocrite.”

At the height of the Great Recession, he pronounced the lofty goal of making Barack Obama a one-term president. Over the past year — and for entirely partisan reasons — he obstructed the confirmation of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, ignoring precedents for acting in an election year.

Now that a Republican occupies the White House, McConnell sings a different tune. In a Feb. 1 piece in the Herald Leader, he instructed us to put partisanship aside and give the new Supreme Court nominee “due consideration” and an up-or-down vote.” Surprise, surprise, he found precedents for this. “History teaches us” of the dangers of partisanship, he solemnly intoned (as though he were history’s oracle). He raised the ominous specter of the “far left” (which I gather includes anybody to the left of him) and warned of “hyperbolic attacks” on the nominee. Such things, he concluded, must be resisted “for the sake of the country.”

This master obstructionist whose guiding star is partisan gain has absolutely no claim to lecture anyone about the need to work together for “the sake of the country.”

This story was originally published March 10, 2017 at 5:25 PM with the headline "No room to lecture."