Mitch McConnell

The Real Scandal In Kentucky? McConnell Is Vulnerable And Needs a Real Opponent
By Paul Bremmer | April 16, 2013 | 10:46 AM EDT

When a secret, closed-door conversation about campaign strategy is recorded, illegally, and put out in the public domain, it's a significant story about invasion of privacy that should generate media attention. But of course, the target of the recording in question was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), so naturally the liberal media are turning a critical eye on him rather than the group that made the illegal recording.


On Saturday’s Today, NBC brought on the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman to spin the controversy into a story about McConnell’s weaknesses and wrongdoings. Co-host Erica Hill started by asking if the conversation was recorded illegally. Fineman danced around the matter with an evasive answer: “Well, that's an open question... In Kentucky law and federal law it's possibly illegal, but that's open to question because the person recording it could also hear it.”

 

Whose 'Embarrassment' Is Secret Taping of Sen. McConnell? NYT Says It's His, WP Says Left-Wing PAC
By Clay Waters | April 16, 2013 | 8:11 AM EDT

At least one major paper is taking seriously the illicit taping of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's strategy session by a left-wing Democratic PAC, which then found its way into the left-wing magazine Mother Jones.

The magazine's first foray into hidden video struck left-wing gold -- capturing candidate Mitt Romney's claim at a fundraiser about the "47 percent" who would vote for Obama because they were dependent on government. But this new clip, in which McConnell's staff discusses a potential Democratic opponent, actress Ashley Judd, seems to have backfired on the magazine and the liberal PAC Progress Kentucky, who provided the clip, both of which are in legal hot water.

But New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel saw only embarrassment on Sen. McConnell's side in his Friday account, buried under an innocuous headline on page 14, "McConnell Recording Is Linked To a PAC."

Foreign Policy Mag: Mitch McConnell 'More Dangerous to America' Than Kim Jong Un
By Noel Sheppard | April 12, 2013 | 1:16 PM EDT

You may not be familiar with Foreign Policy magazine or its CEO and editor-at-large, but on Thursday, David Rothkopf published an op-ed at Philly.com with the following headline:

Mitch McConnell's No Kim Jong Un, But He's More Dangerous to America

ABC Hypes 'Startling Secret Tape' of Mitch McConnell and Aides 'Scheming' Against Ashley Judd
By Matthew Balan | April 10, 2013 | 6:54 PM EDT

On Tuesday's World News and Wednesday's Good Morning Ameica, ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Jim Avila ballyhooed far-left magazine Mother Jones's secretly-recorded audio recording of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy meeting with political advisers about potential opponent Ashley Judd. Stephanopoulos touted the "startling secret tape revealing how the Senate's top Republican was planning to go after...Judd if she ran against him."

Avila played up McConnell's apparent "cutthroat attack on a Hollywood opponent" and the Republican's "private and politically-embarrassing strategy session", all the while omitting left-of-center ideology of the publication that released the audio clip and minimizing the possible illegality of its recording.

Bill Maher Compares Senator Mitch McConnell to Newtown Mass Murderer Adam Lanza
By Noel Sheppard | April 6, 2013 | 12:23 PM EDT

There clearly is no floor to how low Bill Maher will go to attack conservatives.

On HBO’s Real Time Friday, the host actually compared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to Newtown, Connecticut, mass murderer Adam Lanza (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Chris Matthews: 'No Chance Anyone’s Looking for a Nekkid Picture of Mitch McConnell'
By Noel Sheppard | March 11, 2013 | 6:48 PM EDT

"No chance anyone’s looking for a nekkid picture of Mitch McConnell.”

As amazing as it might seem, such was actually said by MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Hardball Monday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CBS News Political Director: 'Obama Can Only Cement His Legacy If He Destroys the GOP'
By Noel Sheppard | January 19, 2013 | 12:17 PM EST

"The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat."

So astonishingly wrote CBS News political director John Dickerson at Slate Friday evening in a piece astonishingly titled "Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party."

David Limbaugh Column: On Revenues, Obama Has Just Begun
By David Limbaugh | January 9, 2013 | 6:02 PM EST

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells us the tax issue is behind us and that we can now move on to spending. Really? What makes him think the GOP will succeed this time when it couldn't last time?

The just-concluded fiscal cliff deal included no material spending cuts, which the GOP justified by saying it had achieved locked-in rates for most of Bush's tax cuts, which would force Obama to seriously discuss spending cuts and entitlement reform as part of the upcoming debt ceiling negotiations.

'Hate Speech' Hypocrisy: Wash. Examiner's Kane Compares Treatment of Limbaugh-Fluke to Donald Kaul-GOP/NRA
By Tom Blumer | January 7, 2013 | 9:35 AM EST

In a Washington Examiner column last night, Gregory Kane made several quite valid points in comparing the media firestorm over Rush Limbaugh's comments about Sarah Fluke to the virtual silence over Des Moines Register columnist Donald Kaul, who, if he were in charge, "would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner ... to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control." Kaul also wrote that he would, "If some people refused to give up their guns," make "that 'prying the guns from their cold, dead hands' thing" operative.

Confirming what readers here would expect, a search at the Associated Press's national web site on Kaul's last name comes up empty. Key paragraphs from Kane's column follow the jump (HT Instapundit; bolds are mine):

So the Fiscal Cliff Bill Protects 'the 99 Percent' From Income-Tax Hikes? Hardly
By Tom Blumer | January 5, 2013 | 10:46 AM EST

On Wednesday, as President Obama signed -- er, auto-penned -- the legislation preventing the onset of the "fiscal cliff" passed by Congress the previous day, the establishment press was busy understating its impact. A Friday evening Wall Street Journal editorial (note: not a regular news report) in today's print edition lays out the gory details.

But first, I will cite four examples of coverage which pretended that 99 percent of Americans won't see their income taxes increase in 2013.

CBS's Bill Plante Minimizes Pro-Gun Rights Voices; Slants 3 to 1 In Favor of Gun Control
By Matthew Balan | December 19, 2012 | 6:32 PM EST

Bill Plante apparently couldn't be bothered to find more than one conservative/Republican for his report on Wednesday's CBS This Morning. Plante aired one soundbite from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but followed it with three straight clips from liberals/gun control supporters - White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, the Brady Campaign's Dan Gross, and Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, who attacked the NRA's leadership as "bullies".

The correspondent hyped supposed "public outrage over the massacre [that] has also emboldened members of Congress to challenge the power of the gun lobby." Plante also spotlighted the NRA's multi-million dollar lobbying campaign in 2012:

Nets, WashPost, NYT All Fail to Report Harry Reid Refused to Allow Senate Vote On Obama 'Fiscal Cliff' Plan He Cheered Last Week
By Ken Shepherd | December 6, 2012 | 4:12 PM EST

Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) a golden opportunity to prove just how popular President Obama's plan to avert the fiscal cliff is with his member of his own party. But, true to form, Sen. Reid refused to schedule the vote. "Not a single Senate Democrat has stepped forward to support it, and if you look at it you can see why.... It increases taxes," McConnell was quoted by Ramsey Cox in a story filed the afternoon of December 5 for TheHill.com. For his part, Reid dismissed McConnell's push for a vote as a stunt, although just last week he praised the president's plan, suggesting Obama and Senate Democrats were "on the same page."

Unfortunately this development failed to receive any mention on the evening newscasts for ABC, CBS, or NBC, nor on the December 6 morning programs for the same networks. Likewise both the New York Times and Washington Post December 6 print editions failed to report Reid's refusal to schedule a vote.