Juan Williams: McConnell won big by blocking Obama

Drumroll, please….

The winner of my 2016 award for the top member of Congress is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 

Yes, you read that right.

A Democrat feels compelled to honor McConnell.

Let me explain.

{mosads}For the past five years, this column has annually celebrated the Member of Congress who made the biggest impact during the preceding 12 months.

Usually the award goes to a legislator for positive action. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) won for taking a political risk and gaining Senate passage of an immigration reform bill. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) won for her daring, passionate focus on income inequality, moving the issue to the top of the national political agenda.

But in this topsy-turvy political year, which culminated in the election of Donald J. Trump as president, the old rules have gone out the window.

McConnell is this year’s winner for stopping Senate action.

Evidence of the success of McConnell’s obstructionism is his victory in holding the GOP majority in the Senate when the odds favored the Democrats taking over.

McConnell’s majority — likely 52 GOP senators after the Louisiana Senate race is decided this month — will be aided and abetted by a Republican president and a Republican House.

The Kentuckian won, again, by refusing to allow President Obama to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. With Trump’s victory, the job will now go to a Republican nominee.

McConnell also won by keeping his mouth shut about Trump. Unlike Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), McConnell stayed silent on Trump’s vulgar comments and appeals to bigotry. Trump and his friends remain critical of Ryan, but they are now courting McConnell.

And McConnell won again last week when Trump named his wife, Elaine Chao, as his nominee to serve as Secretary of Transportation.

All these triumphs for McConnell are hard to believe given that Congress has a dismal 15.4 percent approval rating, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. That low rating is rooted in public frustration with a do-nothing Congress defined by McConnell’s strategy of obstruction.

But like it or not, there is no denying that McConnell comes out of this year’s political cycle as the big winner on Capitol Hill.

McConnell’s Republican predecessors as Senate Majority Leader — legendary figures such as Everett Dirksen, Howard Baker and Bob Dole — always played politics with great respect for the Constitutional responsibilities of the Senate, and respect for the best interests of the nation. There was a sense of shame about being too overly political.

McConnell demonstrated no such restraint or capacity for shame. And he got away with it.

The best recent example of his bare-knuckle style is his handling of the Supreme Court vacancy that occurred after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February. Within days, McConnell made the unprecedented announcement that he would not even hold hearings, much less a vote, to confirm any nominee coming from Obama, a twice-elected president with nearly a year remaining in office. 

When Obama fulfilled his constitutional duty by selecting a nominee, Federal Judge Merrick Garland, McConnell refused to even meet with him. That level of disrespect was too much even for some of McConnell’s own troops. Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) did meet with Garland.

McConnell is a hardball political player but he does have a sense of humor. Last year, I ran into him as he was leaving a television interview and he teased me by saying: “You haven’t written anything trashing me lately.” 

First elected in 1985, McConnell has served longer than any other Kentucky senator. A cynic might look at his record and say McConnell has been part of the D.C. swamp since it was a mere wetland.

When a reporter asked him last week if he would work with Trump to “drain the swamp,” McConnell dodged, saying he wanted to focus on “real concerns.”

In the ultimate twist, Democrats who, like me, decried McConnell’s tactics may end up following his example, seeking to block the most radical parts of Trump’s agenda and his most radical right-wing nominees.

And then there is the potential tension between Trump and McConnell. Remember Trump is at odds with most of the orthodox Republican positions that McConnell has spent his political life advocating.

McConnell, unlike Trump, backs free trade; he supports U.S. participation in NATO; he is opposed to paid maternity leave; he favors changing Medicare into a limited benefit; and he dodged support for paying for a wall on the Mexican border.

But for now McConnell is the man of the hour. He blocked the Obama agenda for eight years. He saved his Senate majority. And now it is up to him to slow down, speed up or even stop the Trump agenda.

Trump may soon find that he has finally met his match in Mr. McConnell.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.