{"id":32678,"date":"2018-10-07T21:17:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32678"},"modified":"2018-10-07T21:17:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:17:04","slug":"lets-call-him-slippery-mitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32678","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s call him &#8216;Slippery Mitch&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/BBO4dH7.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-32679\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/BBO4dH7-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/BBO4dH7-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/BBO4dH7-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/BBO4dH7.jpg 799w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of Donald J. Trump&#8217;s knack for attaching pejorative nicknames on certain politicians, I want to hang a label on the U.S. Senate majority leader.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s call him &#8220;Slippery Mitch&#8221; McConnell.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, my. The fellow is hard to pin down, no matter how direct the questioning becomes. Consider what happened this morning on &#8220;Fox News Sunday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The program moderator Chris Wallace sought to ask McConnell whether the Senate would consider a U.S. Supreme Court nomination in 2020 if one were to become available. Why did Wallace pose the question? Because McConnell blocked then-President Obama&#8217;s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.<\/p>\n<p>McConnell said the president shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to pick a justice in an election year. He prevented Garland from getting a hearing before the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>But, Wallace wondered \u2026 what about 2020, when we&#8217;ll have <em>another<\/em> presidential election?<\/p>\n<p>McConnell wouldn&#8217;t answer Wallace&#8217;s direct question, which was whether he would proceed with a confirmation process if Donald Trump nominated someone in 2020. McConnell then tossed out the notion that he blocked Obama&#8217;s nomination of Garland on the fact that the Senate was led by a party that differed from the president.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace picked up on McConnell&#8217;s change of motivation and wanted to know if that rule still applied, given that both the Senate and the presidency could be controlled by Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>McConnell still refused to answer the question, casting it as a hypothetical.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/10\/06\/opinion\/sunday\/lindsey-graham-brett-kavanaugh.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=opinion&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=4&amp;pgtype=sectionfront\">Wallace grills McConnell<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And \u2026 so it goes on and on.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is a surprise. Politicians by their nature are prone to slip and slide away from direct questions \u2026 which I reckon explains why the media and others are so quick to praise those rare politicians who are willing to speak directly and candidly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Slippery Mitch&#8221; McConnell has shown just how elusive an experienced pol can become.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the spirit of Donald J. Trump&#8217;s knack for attaching pejorative nicknames on certain politicians, I want to hang a label on the U.S. Senate majority leader. Let&#8217;s call him &#8220;Slippery Mitch&#8221; McConnell. Oh, my. The fellow is hard to pin down, no matter how direct the questioning becomes. Consider what happened this morning on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32678\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Let&#8217;s call him &#8216;Slippery Mitch&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[412,540,973,1424,1788,1791,6063,3099],"class_list":["post-32678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-antonin-scalia","tag-barack-obama","tag-chris-wallace","tag-donald-trump","tag-fox-news","tag-fox-news-sunday","tag-merrick-garland","tag-mitch-mcconnell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32680,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32678\/revisions\/32680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}