The Most Important Republicans of the Past Century?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

George Will is a well-known conservative commentator who at one time was a regular panelist on “This Week with David Brinkley” where he would spar with the host as well as with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts every Sunday on ABC.  He is currently an opinion columnist with the Washington Post.  There was a quote by George Will in Politico yesterday which captured my attention.  It read:
 

“Tuesday’s Senate ratification of Ukrainian aid proves that Dwight Eisenhower’s baton of Republican internationalism was passed, via Ronald Reagan, to Mitch McConnell.  They are the three most important Republicans of the past 100 years.”

 
Eisenhower?  Probably.  The man who planned and executed the D-Day invasion of Europe certainly knew many of the international leaders, was familiar with the world stage, and managed to get us to a peace agreement in Korea.  Reagan barked a good game, such as when he was demanding that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, but he was also easily duped and led around by self-serving underlings like Ollie North who saddled him with the Iran-Contra mess.   

But Mitch McConnell?  Seriously, George?  Mitch, the court-packing weasel who has warmed his hands inside of the pockets of every lobbyist in the Free World?   Some of Mitch’s push for US aid to Ukraine is possibly rooted in a desire to maintain US strength on the international stage, but Mitch McConnell is a vindictive, political creature, and he was certainly also motivated to get even with the Trump loyalists in the Senate who pushed him out of his comfy and lucrative GOP leader’s post.    Mitch’s top priority is to take care of Mitch.
 
Surely Richard Nixon who “opened the door to China” would feel slighted by being left off George Will’s list.  
 
But, considering the list of notables that George Will had to draw from, perhaps he did as well as could be expected.  If the Republican Party suddenly came up with a way to rid itself of its Nazis, racists, homophobes, religious fanatics, sexual predators, serial liars, wannabe social media stars, criminals, and other human cockroaches, the leftover pickings would be damned thin.
 
Maybe George Will is right, and Mitch is the cream of the Republican crop.   Even if he is, that’s certainly not much to brag about.