Mitch McConnell freezes up again
Sen. Mitch McConnell, whatever parts are failing him, is yet another entry into the decline of the Washington, D.C. gerontocracy (Washington Post):
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to freeze for more than 20 seconds Wednesday while taking questions from journalists in an incident that mirrored another occasion when he abruptly stopped speaking in late July.
McConnell took questions from reporters in Covington, Ky., after talking with a local group. A reporter asked him about running for reelection in 2026, then repeated the query twice when McConnell said he couldn’t hear, according to video of the incident.
McConnell, 81, chuckled and said, “Oh, that’s, uhh —” and stopped speaking. After about seven seconds, an aide approached and asked the senator if he had heard the question.
She was covering, clearly, to make it appear his problem was hearing.
McConnell stared straight ahead, and the aide asked reporters to give them a minute.
Another aide then walked over and spoke to McConnell, who signaled that he was fine. McConnell then cleared his throat, said “Okay,” and continued to take questions. His answers were stilted.
In total, the minority leader was silent for more than 20 seconds.
“Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” a spokesman for McConnell said in a statement afterward.
At 81, McConnell is not okay while President Joe Biden, 80, is out bicycling.
Biden’s quadruply indicted predecessor, 77, is … what he is.
Many families face that moment when it’s time for the kids to take away mom’s or dad’s car keys. Dents and broken taillights testify that their eyesight is shot and their reflexes too. Or worse, they wander off and cannot find their way home or remember who they are talking to or where they are. It does not happen to every elderly person. The spouse has a friend who at 100 still writes cogent letters to the editor. She can’t hear well, but she’s otherwise remained sharp and mobile. Both my grandmothers made it to 92 with their wits about them even as their bodies declined. (Fingers crossed here.)
Senators with tenure build up an infrastructure around themselves of executive perks plus staff and advisers whose livelihoods depend on the senator continuing to be a senator. So much so that that they don’t know when it’s time to go, and there’s no one to take the keys. Their retinue has little incentive to.
Whatever is ailing McConnell, he is clearly ailing. Likely, he never has to drive himself anywhere, so that’s a plus. Perhaps it’s Parkinson’s which I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California reached that point some time ago:
Feinstein, Jane Mayer’s sources tell her, suffers from significant short-term memory loss. Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond’s was so notorious in South Carolina by his late-80s (I was told) he was said to have introduced himself to one of his sons at an event. During the Clinton impeachment, a reporter recounted Thurmond (96) mistaking him for an aide outside a hearing room and taking his arm as his escort “to the toilee.”
The back end of that Thurmond story was an aide bursting into the men’s room in a panic over having lost the senator. But so long as the staff could wind him up each morning and keep him moving without falling over they could keep their jobs.
McConnell is having trouble not falling over.