GOP senators weigh 'special' meeting on their leadership after McConnell's freeze

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Politico: Why Is Nobody Doing Anything About Mitch McConnell?

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/31/why-is-nobody-doing-anything-about-mitch-mcconnell-00113646

Why Is Nobody Doing Anything About Mitch McConnell?
Washington is paralyzed as the Senate minority leader freezes up.
By JACK SHAFER
08/31/2023 01:44 PM EDT

For the second time in about a month, the heavy gears and winches that drive Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s brain seized up in front of news cameras. While taking questions from reporters on Wednesday in Covington, Ky., and asked about running for reelection in 2026, the top Republican powered down for 30 seconds as if an unseen hand had removed the lithium ion battery from his chassis. Attempts by an aide to reboot him seemed to succeed as he muttered, “OK,” and gave brief answers before retiring from the scene.

The incident paralleled a similar one on Capitol Hill at a late July presser when discussing legislation. Without warning or punctuation, the scaffolding of speech collapsed on the senator, forcing him to abandon the podium. To be clear, neither of these shutdowns were like the ones we all experience — the loss of a conversation thread, the failure to find the right word or term of art to express an idea. In both cases, McConnell simply went offline, requiring rescue by his supporters. His aides told the press Wednesday that the senator had “felt momentarily lightheaded,” mirroring Mitch’s own postmortem to his July fade-to-black when he returned to face reporters and said, “I’m fine.”

If McConnell were a bus driver or broadcaster or teacher engaged in any other occupation that, like serving as a legislative leader, demands real-time responses, he would have been benched pending a medical examination. Instead, Mitch’s verbal stoppage has been met with paralysis by the political order, which seems incapacitated by his condition. The president and others have voiced their “concerns” for McConnell’s episodes, offering verbal placeholders for the stark questions that demand answers. Instead, apart from the barest of acknowledgments that McConnell will consult a physician, and the prospect of an internal Senate GOP discussion, it’s the Washington establishment that is acting lightheaded and professing that things are fine.

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