McConnell: We can't de-fund Planned Parenthood without a shutdown, and that would look bad

Wrong on every count.

I’m getting really tired of this “second kick of a mule” nonsense from Mitch McConnell, but even more so, I’m getting really tired of the way this guy views his priorities as Majority Leader in the United States Senate. The media’s narrative is that every time Republicans and President Obama disagree on a budget priority, Republicans are “trying to shut down the government”. We all know that’s how the media’s going to play. That doesn’t mean the titular leader of the Republicans has accept that narrative lock, stock and barrel. But he does, because he’s a creature of Washington and if this is the way everyone in Washington thinks, he’s not about to challenge the conventional wisdom.

So when a media type asks McConnell if the Republicans are going to shut down the government to try to de-fund Planned Parenthood, he could have said, “That question makes no sense. The United States Congress has to approve any funding priority of the federal government, and if we choose not to fund that particular item, we’re simply exercising our prerogative. If President Obama wants it funded, he can come and tell us that and we can negotiate, but the mere decision of the Congress not to fund something in no way constitutes ‘trying to shut down the government’ unless the White House decides to engage in brinkmanship by refusing to sign a spending measure over that one issue. Because if I take your question to its logical conclusion, it would mean that any decision to say no to the president about anything he wants would mean we ‘tried to shut down the government,’ and if that’s the case then the Congress no longer has any role in budgeting other than to rubber-stamp everything the president wants. If that’s what you think, then you don’t understand how the Constitution lays out the workings of the federal government.”

That’s what he should have said. Instead, he said this: