(h/t Heather)
Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with compelling evidence that turtles possess no moral compass, no sense of ethics or the ability to feel shame for utter hypocrisy.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on CBS' Face the Nation to pooh-pooh the Office of General Ethics' complaint that the Senate was rushing President-elect Trump's cabinet nominations to vote before ethics investigations could be completed. Rather than dealing with the allegations by the non-partisan office, McConnell spins this as a totally partisan--and therefore, dismissable--complaint by the minority party.
“All of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustration at having not only lost the White House but having lost the Senate. I understand that but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that.”
Oh yes, because we all know how mature the Republican Party was in 2008 and how quickly they 'got past' that, right??? McConnell's cynicism counting on no one remembering last month, much less eight years ago is a complete insult to our collective intelligence. But, some of us do remember, Turtleman:
Mitch McConnell to Reid in 2009: nominee "financial disclosures must be complete... prior 2hearing being scheduled." pic.twitter.com/wxCfXTPS6g
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) January 8, 2017
If he was capable of feeling shame instead of rabid partisanship, I'd call out the hypocrisy, but it would fall on deaf ears.
What's truly jaw-droppingly laughable is McConnell then advising the Democrats to treat the president-elect's nominations as the Republicans have treated President Obama's. "We want to treat -- they should want to treat President-Elect Trump just like we treated President-Elect Obama."
There is at least one Democratic senator making the initial stirrings of demanding ethics considerations, though what legal mechanisms are in place for that I've not made clear.
Cabinet officials must put our country's interests before their own. No conf hearings should be held until we’re certain that’s the case.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) January 7, 2017
It would be nice to see the Democratic Party act as the Republican Party has for the last eight years to put a brake on these flagrant conflicts of interest. The only way I can see the Republican Party put the country over partisan concerns (and I'm not at all confident that Mitch McConnell will ever feel that way) is by making aligning themselves with Trump's coterie of ethical, constitutional and corporate conflicts of interest and incompetents too toxic for their own political futures.
