Tag Archives: Sen. John Kennedy

national news

Sen. Kennedy: ‘I was wrong’ about Russia’s attack

What do you know about this?

It appears — and happily so — that Donald Trump’s penchant for refusing to apologize when he messes up isn’t contagious among fellow Republican politicians.

One of them, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, said over the weekend that Ukraine might have attacked our electoral system in 2016. The TV interviewer, Fox News’s Chris Wallace, asked him directly who he thought was responsible for the hack into the Democratic National Committee server. Kennedy said it could have been Russia, or it could also have been Ukraine.

Wallace pushed back, telling Kennedy that the U.S. intelligence community said uniformly that Russia was responsible. Kennedy didn’t take the bait in the moment.

The “Ukraine mighta done it” narrative has become a talking point among GOP politicians seeking to divert attention away from Russia and from Trump’s bizarre affection for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

Then Kennedy had second thoughts about what he told Wallace and told CNN’s Chris Cuomo he was wrong. Sen. Kennedy said he misheard Wallace’s question, then affirmed that Russia was responsible.

That didn’t hurt a bit, I’ll bet.

If only the nation’s top Republican, Donald Trump, could swipe a page from Kennedy’s book of contrition.

Alas, it won’t happen. Not ever.

national news

‘I mean no disrespect … ‘

I learned a long time ago that when someone says they “mean no disrespect,” they usually do mean disrespect.

So it was this week when U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., stood before a Donald Trump rally crowd and bellowed that “I mean no disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb.”

The object of his “mean no disrespect” setup? It wasn’t the guy standing next to him, which was the president of the United States.

Oh, no. It was U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who launched the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct as president. The inquiry, of course, is intended to determine if the House will impeach Trump.

You and I know it will do precisely that.

Sen. Kennedy, though, wants to declare his fealty to the president. He does so by disparaging the intelligence of arguably the nation’s most adroit politician, who in my mind happens to be Speaker Pelosi.

Kennedy’s “mean no disrespect” comment, shall we say, was quite disrespectful. I am looking forward to seeing who among the nation’s leading politicians comes out of this mess with the more serious battle scars.

My hunch is that it won’t be Speaker Nancy Pelosi.