{"id":7187,"date":"2015-01-08T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=7187"},"modified":"2015-01-08T08:46:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T14:46:00","slug":"mitch-mcconnell-statesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/mitch-mcconnell-statesman\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitch McConnell, statesman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/dana-milbank-mitch-mcconnell-is-off-to-a-bitter-start\/2015\/01\/07\/0b8cd304-96a0-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html?wprss=rss_dana-milbank\">Mitch McConnell is off to a bitter start &#8211; The Washington Post<\/a> by Dana Milbank<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>McConnell hailed the contributions of senators from Henry Clay to Robert Byrd, but his self-aggrandizing claim about the economy brought to mind Byrd\u2019s withering criticism of <strong>Republicans as pygmies who \u201cstride like colossuses while marveling like Aesop\u2019s fly, sitting on the axle of a chariot, \u2018My, what a dust I do raise.\u2019<\/strong>?\u201d <\/p>\n<p>McConnell, when he wasn\u2019t taking credit for things that preceded his ascent, gave a remarkably <strong>angry and ungracious<\/strong> first speech to the body he now leads. It was an 18-minute <strong>snarl<\/strong>, dripping with contempt and packed with campaign-style barbs for the president. He didn\u2019t even offer an expression of condolences to the French after the terrorist attack Wednesday in Paris. (He mentioned the carnage to reporters later, after lunch.)  <\/p>\n<p>If this opening speech was a sign of McConnell\u2019s leadership, it\u2019s going to be a long and unproductive session. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/dana-milbank-mitch-mcconnell-is-off-to-a-bitter-start\/2015\/01\/07\/0b8cd304-96a0-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html?wprss=rss_dana-milbank\">Mitch McConnell is off to a bitter start &#8211; The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitch McConnell is off to a bitter start &#8211; The Washington Post by Dana Milbank McConnell hailed the contributions of senators from Henry Clay to Robert Byrd, but his self-aggrandizing claim about the economy brought to mind Byrd\u2019s withering criticism of Republicans as pygmies who \u201cstride like colossuses while marveling like Aesop\u2019s fly, sitting on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/mitch-mcconnell-statesman\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mitch McConnell, statesman<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7188,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7187\/revisions\/7188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}