Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s willing, nay anxious, to work with President Obama on one issue. The economy? Nope. Health care? Not at all. McConnell, speaking at a breakfast this morning hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, says he wants to work hand in hand on Social Security reform. Perhaps he’s hoping the Third Rail of American politics will burn Obama the way it did President Bush.
The hour-long session – where McConnell chose to formally stand while some thirty reporters ate – was wide ranging from whether Kentucky or Tennessee bourbon is better (turns out, Tennessee whiskey can’t call itself bourbon, so there’s no contest) to whether Louisville will beat UNC (clearly, folks were scraping the bottom of the barrel). When asked why McConnell – who accused Obama of trying to “Europeanize America” – feels comfortable now attacking the President when for months he’s held his fire, preferring to target the Senate leadership, McConnell replied: Obama has “made proposals. If he’d meet us in the middle he’d find an extraordinary amount of cooperation. The stimulus, the budget, these are not bipartisan moves.”
And McConnell was not shy in criticizing the Obama Administration. “The president’s chief of staff had made it clear that they’re going to use what’s wrong with the economy… to scare us into … passing a 20 or 30 year wish list for their party,” McConnell railed, well as much as McConnell does rail as he’s a pretty even keeled guy.
Other highlights of the breakfast:
EFCA is “Orwellian” and will be “a major, major fight.”
He declined to comment on Jim Bunning.
On Steele: “I think it’s safe to say that Michael Steele has gotten off to a rough start but I think he’ll hit his stride soon.”