Republican obstructionism: McConnell opposes START ratification

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

CNN:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voiced opposition Sunday to the New START - a nuclear arms treaty with Russia - saying that members of his party need more time to consider the legislation.

"I've decided I cannot support the treaty," McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think if they'd taken more time with this, rushing it right before Christmas strikes me as trying to jam us."

He said trying to get a vote before Christmas was not the best way to "get support of people like me," and that GOP senators are "uneasy" about the legislation. 

Bullshit. This is pure spin, and you shouldn't believe a word of it. McConnell's strategy ever since President Obama took the oath of office was to try to block every Democratic initiative in order to deny the president any possible legislative victories heading into 2012. He wants Obama to be a one-termer, after all.

Now, all Republicans want Obama to lose in 2012, of course, but McConnell has made it his mission not to allow for compromise on anything. Given this, yesterday's DADT repeal was all the more amazing, as eight Republicans joined with Democrats to put an end to that bigoted policy.

McConnell doesn't want or need "more time" to debate START, he wants to kill it. And he hopes to do that by delaying and procrastinating as much as possible, by claiming he's all about a meaningful legislative process (and hoping to win public support that way, by duping people into thinking he's sincere) while being a partisan obstructionist behind the scenes.

In other words, there's no way "people like [him]" will ever support START -- or anything else of significance, for that matter. I realize it's his job to be full of shit, but it's oozing out of his pores with alarming intensity.

This, as we head into 2011, is simply the Republican way.