"Jesse, please, tell me you didn't mean it!"
With last week's
revelation that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign manager was "sort of holding my nose" to help McConnell get reelected—to further the 2016 ambitions of his real boss, Sen. Rand Paul—and following McConnell's pathetic
refusal to fire the man who had just publicly humiliated him, let the Jesse Benton
redemption tour begin. (Warning: It's like peeking into the diary of a teenage girl.)
After sobbing that "it was just such a stupid thing to say" and insisting that working for Sen. Stinky McConnell is "one of the great honors of my life," Benton says the worst part was admitting his betrayal to Mitch himself:
"He wasn't angry, he wasn't upset, but I could see the hurt in his eyes," Benton continued. "He asked me how I could say something like that, and I just didn't have a good answer. I apologized from the bottom of my heart and I told him it's not what I believe and that I am here because I believe in him."
How touching. Or Hilarious.
Even more comical was Benton's outrage that the campaign of Matt Bevin, McConnell's Republican primary challenger, would jump on his little faux pas and even issue a statement mocking the "holding his nose" comment:
"I thought it was a little off-putting that people who professed to be Republicans and conservatives seem to just jump on my difficult situation with such glee," Benton told WHAS11. "It was very off-putting and I don't think speaks very highly of them and what they're trying to do."
This from the campaign that
called Bevin a yankee tax cheat who sucked at the government teat. Pure comedy.
The bottom line is, McConnell and Benton have a quid pro quo relationship: Benton will help lock down desperately needed tea party support for McConnell in exchange for McConnell's full-throated support of Rand Paul's 2016 presidential ambitions. And now Benton needs to convince tea party groups that his (and Paul's) support for McConnell is "sincere."
Even if he has to hold his nose while doing it.
Please join with Daily Kos and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee by signing the pledge to fight back against Mitch McConnell and end GOP Gridlock in the Senate.