For four years, conservatives said what Democrats wouldn't: Joe Biden was not fit to serve as president of the United States, and the people closest to him knew it. We caught every stumble, every blank stare, every incoherent answer, and we said so out loud. Democrats and their allies in the media called it ageism. They called it cruel. They called it a conspiracy theory right up until his debate disaster made it impossible for them to deny it any longer. We were right about Biden. That means we now have an obligation, when the same warning signs appear within our own party, to say something.
Mitch McConnell has effectively vanished from public view for weeks, and Kentucky's Democrat governor wants answers.
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) sent a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday demanding that McConnell disclose more about his health and whether he's capable of finishing his term. McConnell, 84, entered the hospital last month and hasn't appeared publicly, released a photo, or put out a video of himself since. Over three weeks of silence from a sitting United States senator is not a small thing, and Beshear said as much.
"Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and well-being, and ability to hold office," Beshear wrote.
I can't say I blame him.
McConnell's aides insisted last week that the senator "continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session." That's the extent of what the public has been told. The best evidence Republican leadership can offer that McConnell is still capable of doing his job is that he talked to some of them on the phone, which is not exactly a satisfying substitute for seeing the man himself.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday that they'd spoken with McConnell and described him as alert and engaged on current events. Maybe it's true. Secondhand reassurances from political allies with every incentive to keep the seat quiet don't count as proof of anything.
Obviously, the Biden situation was much worse for obvious reasons, but there’s really no reason why McConnell’s health situation needs to be covered up the way it is.
McConnell has already announced he'll retire when his term expires in January, so there's no reelection campaign riding on this. Kentuckians still deserve honesty about whether an 84-year-old senator can still do the job voters elected him to do. Republican lawmakers in Kentucky rewrote the succession rules in 2021 and again in 2024, stripping the governor of the power to appoint a temporary replacement. If McConnell's seat becomes vacant, Kentucky would need a special election to fill it.
We went through this with Biden. We went through a version of it with Dianne Feinstein, who stayed in the Senate long after her staff was reportedly making decisions for her. Republicans mocked Democrats for propping up officials who couldn't function and calling it compassion.
We were right to mock it, and we shouldn’t tolerate it coming from our side.
If McConnell is fine, prove it. If he isn't, the country needs to know that too.
