{"id":8331,"date":"2026-08-02T20:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T00:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/?p=8331"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:38:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T00:38:28","slug":"kentucky-columnist-publishes-scathing-mcconnell-pre-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/?p=8331","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Columnist Publishes Scathing McConnell \u2018Pre-Obituary\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has yet to return to the chamber after he was hospitalized on June 14.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of this writing, the long-serving Kentucky Republican is reportedly continuing to<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

recover from a fall and pneumonia, per a statement he released earlier this month on X, along with a photo of him and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the apparent seriousness of the situation, however, a columnist with a Louisville publication felt the need to rip McConnell and his career in what he called a \u201cpre-obituary\u201d last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Gerth, a columnist at McConnell\u2019s hometown paper, also aimed at the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who passed away suddenly earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerth did not attempt to present himself as neutral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He described McConnell as a \u201cdetestable figure\u201d and said he intentionally wrote the column while the senator was still alive so that no one could accuse him of speaking ill of the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claimed that McConnell, 84, dismantled civil rights that he once championed and \u2018enabled\u2019 President Donald Trump, as though the Kentucky senator was somehow responsible for Trump\u2019s two election victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnlike Nixon, McConnell never paid for his sins that have damaged our nation\u2019s trust in government, destroyed the country\u2019s ability to have meaningful dialogue and cemented our nation\u2019s politics as an arena in which winning is the only thing that matters,\u201d Gerth wrote in what could also be said about Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerth said the \u2018inspiration\u2019 behind his column was the death of Graham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat got me thinking about Sen. Mitch McConnell, who was rumored to be dead or on life support or in a coma or whatever and was the odds-on favorite to beat Graham to the gates of hell in the days before Graham\u2019s death,\u201d Gerth wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd, so with McConnell allegedly on the mend, I figured I\u2019d go ahead and tell you what I think about McConnell now \u2014 when no one can complain, \u2018How dare you write that about a dead guy?\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McConnell has served in the Senate for 42 years. He\u2019s won reelection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

six times. He had already announced, however, that he would be retiring after his current term, which expires in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe had more guts as a young man than he had as an old man,\u201d Gerth wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems somehow fitting for the ultimate shape-shifter, who wrote about accompanying Sen. John Sherman Cooper to see Johnson sign the Voting Rights Act into law, that the court he created was the court that struck down the last remaining significant provision,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McConnell released a statement along with his and his wife\u2019s photo featuring him sitting in a hospital bed fully clothed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you elected me to a seventh term and made me our Commonwealth\u2019s longest serving Senator, you did so trusting that I\u2019d keep showing up to fight for you every day. And over the past several weeks, Elaine and I have appreciated both your well wishes and your honest questions about what was keeping me away from the Senate,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older. Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct \u2013 I can\u2019t help it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut at the same time, I\u2019ve had more than my share of experience with physical vulnerabilities. Surviving childhood polio meant spending my entire life with mobility challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey haven\u2019t exactly gotten easier to manage with age. And last month, I took a fall which landed me in the hospital,\u201d he noted further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u201cMy doctors have confirmed that I didn\u2019t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn\u2019t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don\u2019t have any tumors or hemorrhages,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I\u2019ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has yet to return to the chamber after he was hospitalized on June 14. As of this writing, the long-serving Kentucky Republican is reportedly … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8333,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331\/revisions\/8333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duye.it.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}