Mitch McConnell's Doctor Says He Didn't Have a Stroke. Here's What He Suspiciously DIDN'T Say.

The Attending Physician of the United States Congress and the United States Supreme Court, Navy Rear Admiral Dr. Brian Monahan, wants you to calm down and stop telling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Octogenarian) to go home. On Tuesday, the good Dr. Monahan publicly assured the world that when Mitch has suffered his recent spells of sudden speechlessness and confusion, he isn’t in the throes of a stroke or a seizure. Hey, that’s terrific, Dr. Monahan! But what exactly is McConnell suffering from, then? On that, Monahan was as silent as McConnell himself during one of his freeze-ups.

Slay News noted Tuesday that “in a one-paragraph letter to 81-year-old Sen. McConnell, Monahan said he reached his conclusion after a comprehensive neurological assessment.” This comprehensive assessment included a brain MRI, an EEG, and “consultations with several neurologists.” All this neurological testing was necessary because the savvy establishment Republican mainstay froze up again in the middle of a press conference on Aug. 30, just over a month after he went bizarrely silent in similar circumstances for the first time on July 26.

Monahan wrote happily to the aged controlled opposition leader: “There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, [transient ischemic attack] or movement disorder, such as Parkinson’s disease.” The respected physician reminded the superannuated solon, who after all that he has been through may have forgotten that he had “examined McConnell’s health extensively after he suffered a fall in July.” Monahan added that had used “brain [magnetic resonance] imaging, [electroencephalogram] study, and consultations with several neurologists for a comprehensive neurology assessment.”

Gee, that’s swell, but then what did account for Mitch suddenly falling silent, as well as having “reportedly ‘face-planted’ at an airport shortly before the first freezing episode”? What did lead to the fact that ol’ Mitch “also fell while walking on March 8, which led to a fractured ribcage”? Why does he “use a wheelchair at airports”? On all that, Monahan had absolutely nothing to say. The Attending Physician of the United States Congress is content to leave the American people, and presumably the illustrious senator himself, in the dark about the reason or reasons why his health is so rapidly deteriorating before the eyes of the world.

And when you think about it, it is altogether fitting and proper that Monahan should do this. The members of the United States Senate, after all, are not like you and me. They don’t have the same kind of accountability and responsibility that ordinary citizens have. They must be allowed to feed at the public trough in an absolutely unhindered fashion. The public wants to know why Mitch keeps freezing up like an old Buick on a cold winter’s day. Why, what effrontery! What insolence! What right do we peasants have to know what is going on with those who rule over us and who live so lavishly at our expense?

Related: Something’s Very Wrong Here With Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell has been “serving,” as it is still put so quaintly, in the Senate since the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s first term. The world has changed slightly since the day Mitch took his seat in the esteemed chamber. When he entered the senate, the learned talking heads were confidently assuring the nation and the world that the Soviet Union was here to stay and that Reagan was disastrously wrong not to continue the previous policy of appeasement known as “détente.”

And long before that, on the day Mitch was born, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II. That same day, the Japanese defeated Allied forces in the Battle of Badung Strait, off Bali. Today, for a variety of reasons, we aren’t as worried as we once were about the Soviet Union or the Japanese empire, but Mitch is still around.

The clearest indication of just how very old Mitch McConnell really is today is the fact that he is nine months older to the day than Old Joe Biden, who gives us indications of his diminished cognitive abilities on a daily basis (and whose doctors are no more forthcoming about what is going on than is Brian Monahan). It is long past time for McConnell to step aside and allow others to revitalize the political opposition that McConnell, as its putative leader, has done so much to hamstring. But Brian Monahan, and McConnell himself, continue to do all they can to push Mitch’s longed-for day of retirement off into the future.