Senate Minority Leader and Lead Filibusterer Mitch McConnell was recorded at a meeting with aides discussing opposition research on potential opponent Ashley Judd. While McConnell deserves contempt, after reading through the transcript, I’m not finding anything noteworthy from him. His staff is doing almost all of the talking. Some of what they say might be interesting, but this is a lame way to attack McConnell. His years leading the obstructionists in the Senate should provide ample and more outrageous fodder for that.
Maybe this is only getting a lot of attention this week because it is a mean-old-man leads attack on adorable celebrity lady who dares to consider challenging him. So it’s more of an Ashley Judd story.
In case Mother Jones is forced to remove it, below are highlights from the transcript. It does shed a light on how this guy’s staff (and probably, and sadly, politicians in general) operates.
From Mother Jones:
Sen. Mitch McConnell: If I could interject…I assume most of you have played the, the game Whac-A-Mole? [Laughter.] This is the Whac-A-Mole period of the campaign…when anybody sticks their head up, do them out, and we’re even planning to do it with the Courier here shortly, so…
And, that’s all from McConnell.
Presenter: Yeah, it is really hard to get your arms around…
The good news is, she’s to the far left of every issue she’s taken a public stance on, not just far left, nationwide…[Inaudible.] So you know one of the first themes we can sort of hit on, clearly, is that she openly supports President Obama.
Their first evidence that she’s “far to the left” of the country is that she supports Obama. It shows their skewed perspective, and how their unfamiliarity with the facts could be their undoing. This staffer is from the “Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim Marxist Socialist” crowd if he actually believes that Obama is synonymous with the far left.
Presenter: Another thing is she’s clearly anti-coal. She’s tweeted that “the era of the coal plant is over, unacceptable, it’s the dirtiest. We in the US can do better, we need to innovate.”
I’ve omitted all of her mountaintop removal stuff. It’s a whole separate category. It doesn’t quite test as well. But she has, we have her on film, she’s led protests. She’s done speeches at National Press Club condemning mountaintop removal.
This part might be the most interesting bit of the whole meeting. The campaign says they have her on record as being against mountaintop removal, but, “Hey, guys, we’re going to leave that out, because even we know that the majority of the public agrees with her.”
Presenter: I mean clearly she’s a carpetbagger. …
What a blockbuster revelation! I hope you didn’t hurt yourself finding that one. A Hollywood millionaire who travels and lives outside of Kentucky? Who woulda thunk it?
I guess he is assuming that Kentuckians rabidly perfer a douchebagging McConnell over a carpetbagging Judd.
Presenter: I think too she’s clearly sort of anti-sort-of-traditional American family. I think Jesse tracked this down. She described having children as selfish, and she thinks it’s unconscionable to breed. So you put that with what we’ll talk to you later about her sort of pro-choice stance and it’s sort of a, you know, pretty extreme posture to take. She also is critical of, of fathers giving away their daughters in marriage ceremonies. She says it’s a common vestige of male dominion over a women’s reproductive status when her father gives her away at a wedding. And then she’s clearly for pro-abortion.
So he found a bunch of quotes likely to shock and appall only the types of people who were going to vote for McConnell again anyway. I’m beginning to think the McConnell campaign is really getting ripped off by their opposition researchers. I thought they were getting paid to find something useful.
Presenter: She’s an open advocate as you can see. Anyhow I know this is sort of a sensitive subject but you know at least worth putting on your radar screen is that she is critical…[inaudible] sort of traditional Christianity. She sort of views it as sort of a vestige of patriarchy. She says Christianity gives a God like a man, presented and discussed exclusively with male imagery which legitimizes and seals male power, the intention to dominate even if that intention is nowhere visible.
And this is sort of an interview that sort of manifests this sort of I would say oddly synthetic approach to Christianity.
[Plays recording.]
Judd’s voice: I still choose the God of my understanding as the God of my childhood. I have to expand my God concept from time to time, and you know particularly I enjoy native faith practices, and have a very nature-based God concept. I’d like to think I’m like St. Francis in that way. Brother Donkey, Sister Bird. [Laughter.]
Presenter: Brother Donkey, Sister Bird! [Laughter.]
Male voice: The people at Southeast Christian [Church] would take to the streets with pitchforks. [Laughter.]
Presenter: Brother…That’s my favorite line so far. Absolute favorite one so far. [Laughter.]
She also is an open advocate of gay marriage. You can see this is what she tweeted after election night when Maryland approved same sex marriage. “It’s okay to love whom you love.” And then she talks about Maryland’s bill.
Yes, Judd sounds goofy in a quote that can easily be taken out of context and presented as sincere, but I’ll repeat: So he found a bunch of quotes likely to shock and appall only the types of people who were going to vote for McConnell again anyway. I’m beginning to think the McConnell campaign is really getting ripped off by their opposition researchers. I thought they were getting paid to find something useful.
By the way, I chuckled when he said “synthetic approach to Christianity.” That’s like saying her plastic is too artificial.
Presenter: Ah, and again. She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s. Phil Maxson found this, which sort of I think is a pretty revealing interview.
[Plays recording.]
Judd’s voice: I call it the American anesthesia. You know, I come back to this country. I freak out in airports. The colors, the sounds, all those different ways of packaging the same snack but trying to, you know, make it look like it’s distinct and different and convince consumers that they have to have it. I mean all of that. The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge. [Laughter.]
But in a few weeks, you know, I’m driving along smooth roads and I think nothing of it. I’m, you know, choosing between four different brands of cereal from plastic dispensers so that I don’t have to have, you know, ugly, mismatched boxes on my shelf, and I don’t think anything of it. You know?
Presenter: So pink fuzzy socks are of concern. [Laughter.]
Female voice: …at Fancy Farm. We’ll all take pink fuzzy socks. [Laughter.]
This is the arguably offensive part of the meeting where it appears the gang is mocking mental illness or Judd’s goofy description of what she says she experienced. I think he almost admits the attack is a bit mean when he says “this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced.”
I’ll end by letting these scumbags know that I’m not alone in preferring a candidate suffering from a treatable mental illness over an allegedly mentally healthy one who explicitly made it his mission to subvert American democracy. Anyone else feel like some turtle soup?
from BusterBlog: Mitch McConnell: Elderly Mutant Plutocrat Turtle?
