The Attending Physician of the United States Congress and the United States Supreme Court, Navy Rear Admiral Dr. Brian Monahan, wants you to calm down and stop telling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Octogenarian) to go home. On Tuesday, the good Dr. Monahan publicly assured the world that when Mitch has suffered his recent spells of sudden speechlessness and confusion, he isn’t in the throes of a stroke or a seizure. Hey, that’s terrific, Dr. Monahan! But what exactly is McConnell suffering from, then? On that, Monahan was as silent as McConnell himself during one of his freeze-ups.Slay News noted Tuesday that “in a one-paragraph letter to 81-year-old Sen. McConnell, Monahan said he reached his conclusion after a comprehensive neurological assessment.” This comprehensive assessment included a brain MRI, an EEG, and “consultations with several neurologists.” All this neurological testing was necessary because the savvy establishment Republican mainstay froze up again in the middle of a press conference on Aug. 30, just over a month after he went bizarrely silent in similar circumstances for the first time on July 26.
Monahan wrote happily to the aged controlled opposition leader: “There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, [transient ischemic attack] or movement disorder, such as Parkinson’s disease.” The respected physician reminded the superannuated solon, who after all that he has been through may have forgotten that he had “examined McConnell’s health extensively after he suffered a fall in July.” Monahan added that had used “brain [magnetic resonance] imaging, [electroencephalogram] study, and consultations with several neurologists for a comprehensive neurology assessment.”
Gee, that’s swell, but then what did account for Mitch suddenly falling silent, as well as having “reportedly ‘face-planted’ at an airport shortly before the first freezing episode”? What did lead to the fact that ol’ Mitch “also fell while walking on March 8, which led to a fractured ribcage”? Why does he “use a wheelchair at airports”? On all that, Monahan had absolutely nothing to say. The Attending Physician of the United States Congress is content to leave the American people, and presumably the illustrious senator himself, in the dark about the reason or reasons why his health is so rapidly deteriorating before the eyes of the world.
And when you think about it, it is altogether fitting and proper that Monahan should do this. The members of the United States Senate, after all, are not like you and me. They don’t have the same kind of accountability and responsibility that ordinary citizens have. They must be allowed to feed at the public trough in an absolutely unhindered fashion. The public wants to know why Mitch keeps freezing up like an old Buick on a cold winter’s day. Why, what effrontery! What insolence! What right do we peasants have to know what is going on with those who rule over us and who live so lavishly at our expense?
Related: Something’s Very Wrong Here With Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell has been “serving,” as it is still put so quaintly, in the Senate since the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s first term. The world has changed slightly since the day Mitch took his seat in the esteemed chamber. When he entered the senate, the learned talking heads were confidently assuring the nation and the world that the Soviet Union was here to stay and that Reagan was disastrously wrong not to continue the previous policy of appeasement known as “détente.”
And long before that, on the day Mitch was born, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II. That same day, the Japanese defeated Allied forces in the Battle of Badung Strait, off Bali. Today, for a variety of reasons, we aren’t as worried as we once were about the Soviet Union or the Japanese empire, but Mitch is still around.
The clearest indication of just how very old Mitch McConnell really is today is the fact that he is nine months older to the day than Old Joe Biden, who gives us indications of his diminished cognitive abilities on a daily basis (and whose doctors are no more forthcoming about what is going on than is Brian Monahan). It is long past time for McConnell to step aside and allow others to revitalize the political opposition that McConnell, as its putative leader, has done so much to hamstring. But Brian Monahan, and McConnell himself, continue to do all they can to push Mitch’s longed-for day of retirement off into the future.
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Top O’ the Briefing
Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Swanya felt vindicated when the women of Paint Nite admitted that they loved her chickpea/Negroni marmalade.
People trying to make points about their personal views on part of the United States Constitution will often say, “The Founding Fathers never intended,” or something similar. The presumption that some Twitter/X rando in 2023 could even begin to grasp what the likes of Benjamin Franklin or Alexander Hamilton were thinking is beyond ludicrous, but the Founding Fathers were fans of free speech, so people are allowed to babble nonsensically.
One thing I am fairly confident in assuming, however, is that the Founding Fathers couldn’t have known that people would live as long as they do now and that they would serve in elective office long past their “Best If Used By” dates. Depending on the source, the average life expectancy of a male in 1776 was between 38 and 43 years.
Yes, two of the Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — famously lived long lives, especially for the time. They each died on July 4, 1826, aged 83 and 90, respectively.
But they were sane people who had been retired from public office for a very long time.
Now we’ve got Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein hanging around the Senate when they’re obviously not in good shape. Worse yet, the octogenarian president of the United States provides more evidence with each public appearance that he has mentally and physically checked out. Beyond the obvious decline, another thing that they have in common is that licensed physicians keep clearing them to work.
After McConnell’s second thoroughly disturbing “freezing up” event, the Capitol Hill physician issued a report that basically said, “Nah, he’s fine.” Now Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — another licensed physician — is calling malarkey on that, which Matt wrote about:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has done something surprising. He’s disputing the Capitol Hill physician’s report on Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that blames his recent freezing episodes on dehydration. Paul isn’t just blowing smoke here. He’s an ophthalmologist who practiced medicine for nearly thirty years. So when he speaks about the diagnosis, there’s reason to listen.
“I’ve practiced medicine for 25 years, and it doesn’t look like dehydration to me,” Paul told the media on Wednesday. “It looks like a focal neurologic event. That doesn’t mean it’s incapacitating, doesn’t mean he can’t serve. But it means that somebody ought to wake up and say, ‘Wow, this looks like a seizure.’”
I’m a native of a desert. I know what dehydration looks like. I may not be a doctor, but I know that McConnell isn’t glitching simply because he needs some Gatorade.
The physician enablers — we can throw John Fetterman’s doctor into the mix, too — are doing the country a disservice by giving their patients a green light to hang around at work until they drop. The White House physician who insists that President LOLEightyonemillion is functional is an active participant in the rapid destruction of the Republic.
The arrogance of these physicians is irritating. Those of us who haven’t been to medical school are supposed to disregard what’s in plain sight because, “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” I’ve known a lot of people who have suffered from shingles, which was what supposedly kept Dianne Feinstein out on sick leave for so long. None of the people I know who had shingles looked like they had a stroke afterward.
The bigger question — which we’ve asked here about Biden a lot — is, don’t these people have anyone who loves them enough to tell them it’s time to call it a day? Are they all in agreement that clinging to power is worth the repeated public embarrassment and potential further damage to the health of the one in the spotlight? I don’t personally know any of the people I’m writing about here, and I’m really uncomfortable watching them struggle and fall apart before our eyes.
The eyes that their doctors tell us we shouldn’t trust.
There is an unfortunate history of famous people getting their doctors to do and say whatever they wanted them to. Elvis and Prince would be the two most notable examples of that.
How did that work out for them?
