Let is never be said that Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader of the United States, has missed an opportunity to be a thoroughgoing sonuvabitch on the Senate floor, or anywhere else, for that matter. On Monday afternoon, McConnell delivered a speech so sleazy and yet so characteristic of him that it’s a wonder he didn’t burst into flames on the spot. He also laid out the roadmap for what plainly is going to be a balls-to-the-wall defense of the president*, both in Washington and elsewhere. Democrats, you will be astonished to know, are terrorist-symps.

Unfortunately, in this toxic political environment, some of our colleagues rushed to blame our own government before even knowing the facts… rushed to split hairs about intelligence before being briefed on it… and rushed to downplay Soleimani’s evil while presenting our own president as the villain. Soon after the news broke, one of our distinguished colleagues made a public statement that rightly called Soleimani a “murderer”... but then, amazingly, walked that message back when the far left objected to that factual statement. Since then I believe all her criticism has been directed at our own president.

Another of our Democratic colleagues has been thinking out loud about Middle East policy on social media. Mere days before President Trump’s decision, this senator tore into the White House for what he described as weakness and inaction. “No one fears us,” he complained, “Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East." But since the strike — a total 180. The same senator has harshly criticized our own president for getting tough. Ludicrously, he and others on the left have accused the administration of committing an illegal act, and equated the removal of this terrorist leader with a foreign power assassinating our own Secretary of Defense.

This is all meretricious nonsense, especially that slam about how Democrats “rushed to downplay” Soleimani’s activities. There wasn’t a Democrat who commented who didn’t preface the remarks with some variation on the phrase, “American blood on his hands.” McConnell knows this, of course, but he had more egregious lies to get to.

Look — the Senate is supposed to be the chamber where overheated partisan passions give way to sober judgment.

(Note: It was here where I expected him to combust spontaneously.)

Can we not wait until we know the facts? Can we not maintain a shred, just a shred, of national unity for five minutes before deepening the partisan trenches?

(Or, possibly, here.)

Must Democrats’ distaste for this president dominate every thought they express and every decision they make? Is that really the seriousness that this situation deserves? The full Senate will be briefed on Wednesday. I expect the committees of oversight will also conduct hearings and that senators will have plenty of opportunities to discuss our interests and policies in the region. I urge my colleagues to bring a full awareness of the facts, mindfulness of the long history of Iran’s aggression toward the United States and its allies, and a sober understanding of the threat Iran continues to pose. We are all Americans first and we are all in this together.

Also, he wasn’t shy about wrapping the impeachment trial in the bloody rags left behind at the Baghdad airport.

Now meanwhile, at this dangerous time, House Democrats continue to play political games with their partisan impeachment of the commander-in-chief.

The Commander-in-Chief.

This is going to get uglier before it gets grotesque altogether.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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