Would you leave your kids with Sen. McConnell?
Jul 17, 2011
BY BRIAN DICKERSON
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Back in 1996, about the time pollsters were concluding that he was going to be steamrolled in that November's presidential election, a frustrated Bob Dole blurted that he'd make a much better baby-sitter than his Democratic rival.
"If something happened along the route and you had to leave your children with Bob Dole or Bill Clinton," the Republican nominee told a crowd of 400 Pennsylvania voters, "I think you'd probably leave your children with Bob Dole."
Dole's notion, presumably, was to remind voters who tended to see his age as a negative that he was a trustworthy fellow whose grandfatherly manner would put their children at ease in the event they were ever abandoned on the GOP nominee's doorstep.
But most voters were disinclined to believe, at least in those pre-Lewinsky days, that their children would be significantly less safe in the custody of Dole's younger Democratic opponent. Indeed, the net effect of Dole's odd remark was to remind voters that despite their ideological differences, Dole and Clinton were both essentially decent men with a great deal in common -- including the capacity to look competently after a neighbor's child.
Today, not so much
But that was 15 years ago.
And today, as I survey the Republican congressional leaders who have been threatening to reduce the mightiest nation on Earth to a sort of sovereign deadbeat dad, I wonder if any sane parent would be comfortable leaving a child in their care.more...
http://www.freep.com/article/20110717/COL04/107170457/Brian-Dickerson-Would-you-leave-your-kids-Sen-McConnell-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Opinion
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