Let me finish tonight with this.
How about getting the story? How about not burying the lede? How about showing the discernment to know what’s news here and what’s the same old tried and true political spin.
When the tape got out yesterday of Senator Mitch McConnell listening to a campaign staffer trash a potential opponent as “emotionally unbalanced,” people around here on Hardball figured, “Well, this guy’s been caught.” The nasty fellow that tried to do in President Obama from the start is up to the same “snuff politics” he’s known for. There he was, saying it was his and his peoples’ job to hammer down any opponent who stuck her or his head up.
So I pick up the newspapers today and I read not about what McConnell was up to, but his demand that the FBI look investigate who taped him at his meeting.
What’s with these Republicans? I thought they were against big, bad government intrusion. I thought they wanted people to solve their own spats, wanted the local fellows to step in when there’s problem.
The FBI now has to figure out who left their cellphone on “record” at Mitch McConnell’s meeting on how he hopes to mash his opponents.
Look, the story here isn’t the FBI. It’s not the fire department or the “rescue squad.” It’s desperate, politically unbalanced Senator Big Shot who figured the best way to spin the story was to call in a false alarm.
Chris Matthews