McConnell Skips Obama Dinner, Eats With Federalist Society

Sam Stein contributed reporting.

WASHINGTON -- On the day that Republican leaders were supposed to have a bipartisan meeting and an intimate dinner with President Obama, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spent several hours schmoozing with the conservative Federalist Society -- including attending their annual dinner.

Republicans collectively backed out of the dinner with Obama, saying they were too busy, but McConnell said during a 15-minute morning speech to the conservative group that he planned to attend their annual dinner Thursday night, featuring a keynote address by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

McConnell's morning speech focused on Republican efforts to declare March's health care reform unconstitutional, and he sought to enlist the powerful Federalist network in that aim.

"I really admire this [group's] mission," he said. "I think it is so important, and will be joining you -- along with my wife, Bush [Labor Secretary] Elaine Chao, at dinner tonight, so you'll be seeing more of us."

The White House's original invitation was for a bipartisan meeting and then an intimate dinner in the president's private residence.

Obama spokesmen have generally avoided portraying the move as a deliberate brush-off by Republicans.An official statement from the White House ascribed the dinner's move to Nov. 30 to "scheduling conflicts," and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in an off-camera briefing on Thursday, "Sen. McConnell does not make it a regular practice of showing us his daily schedule. ... Again, we are looking forward to sitting down with leaders on both sides on November 30."

In an interview with CNN, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he believed McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner were deliberately snubbing the President.

"I certainly think that is the way it looks and I think that is unfortunate. President Bush invited Speaker Pelosi and I down -- she was not the Speaker nor was I the Leader -- two days after the election he invited us down to lunch in November of '06, and we went down and had a very cordial lunch."

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), wrote on Twitter, "mcconell has time 4 political speech @ federalist society but no time to meet w/obama on jobs? mtg was productive would've been more so w rs [Republicans]."

WATCH:

UPDATE, 7:33 p.m.: At Thursday's Federalist Society dinner, McConnell was acknowledged as one of the attendees, along with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-Utah), and incoming Reps. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and Steve Pearce (R-N.M.).

Comments

[maxwelldog]

05:36 PM on 11/22/2010

Actually, for his health, McConnell SHOULD skip a few more meals.

[deschl]

07:40 AM on 11/22/2010

.Ok is anyone else shocked that a supreme court justice was there while they were discussing overturning health care, I mean what if this makes it to the supreme court, biased no.

[maxwelldog]

05:35 PM on 11/22/2010

I believe that three of the Supreme Court Justices have crawled out onto the stage and are flaunting their long lived jobs at all of us.
Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts are, without a doubt, the least willing to do a job without fairness, equality, or even manners (Scalia has had the SAME piece of spinach in his teeth for a couple of years)

In my opinion, that is.

[Ranaldo]

11:15 AM on 11/20/2010

Dear Mr. President:

I will not be able to make this evening's (November 30th) dinner.

I just washed my chin and I can't do a thing with it.

Love, Mitch.

[concerned joe]

11:12 AM on 11/20/2010

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the self anointed Grand Wizard of the Nincompoops!

And he seems to be very proud of that fact.

[NoPretenses]

09:13 AM on 11/20/2010

Mr. President,

I can only hope that you approach your leadership with a firm grip on the reality that is the R party. They consider bipartisanship a dirty word and they have no respect for you or the Constitution as demonstrated time and again. I dare say if it were up to them we would have a one-party system or a close to it.

Our beef with you is that you want to be the good guy...you have this candyland notion that you can coalescence around ideas and win the goodwill of the Rs and still move your agenda forward. Too often you have passed the ball when we needed you to take it to the hoop.

This is no time for professorship...this is not Harvard...now get to work and be the President we always thought you could be and start kicking some ass starting with the blue dogs.

[Tim The Enchanter]

09:22 AM on 11/20/2010

They're attending a conference specifically to help uphold the Constitution. How does that equate as having "no respect" for it?

Obama should be the one going, maybe he could learn something.

[maxwelldog]

09:42 AM on 11/20/2010

upholding the constitution and gathering together to change it to meet their personal agendas are two different things. And, if you're so naive as to think they are avoiding the President's "party" for the Federalist party, then there's little hope for you.
How popular is the Federalist Party?
(since you're so big on questions)

Well, the first Federalist was John Ada,ms, the Second President of the United States of America.
Followed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams who were all Democratic Republicans. And there never was another Federalist...

Democratic Republicans...
Almost sounds scary, doesn't it.
Wikipedia info.

[deschl]

07:42 AM on 11/22/2010

excuse me he taught constitutional law

[Mildmannered]

01:41 AM on 11/20/2010

I really don't know why the president is bothering. McConnell has made it clear that his objective is to make sure that the country fails so that Obama fails.

[Tim The Enchanter]

09:22 AM on 11/20/2010

If Obama fails, the country will succeed.

[maxwelldog]

09:48 AM on 11/20/2010

That's absolutely correct.
AND, further...
When McConnell fails, the country will succeed better.
When Boehner fails, the country will succeed better.
When Ron and Rand Paul fail, the country will succeed.

What's your point?
That treason against the President is acceptable behavior?
Are you REALLY a Rush Limbaugh fan? I mean, they are so few and far apart. It's just so odd to hear one spouting off out loud like you do.

[JazzyJim]

07:23 PM on 11/19/2010

KKKrackers from Kentucky (my mother's home state). McConnell is the worst representative of the State - and he kept the people in that state in a primarily impoverished and uneducated religulous darkness.

[Tim The Enchanter]

09:23 AM on 11/20/2010

Robert Byrd was the only one from the K K K.

[maxwelldog]

09:32 AM on 11/20/2010

openly, at least.

[JazzyJim]

09:25 PM on 11/20/2010

That admitted it. Unlike Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. What do you call them? Grand Imperial Poo-bahs? Wizards?

[woodnwire]

05:35 PM on 11/19/2010

i'm amazed that he would skip any meal, no matter where it comes from,gotta feed those chins.

[Bill J4321]

05:10 PM on 11/19/2010

The Federalist Society has WAY better rubber chicken than the White House...

[spiegelp]

03:06 PM on 11/19/2010

Why Cantor McConnell get a Boehner?

[WeirdScience]

05:10 PM on 11/19/2010

Because Ms. McConnell's Bush is a- Palin?

[tonebender]

08:05 PM on 11/19/2010

Hai o !

[B Kleitz]

10:52 AM on 11/21/2010

Oh, now y'all are just too funny....Fanned and Faved!!!

[aceshigh]

02:28 PM on 11/19/2010

Obama's response:

"How can we eat dinner together in a more bipartisan manner?"

[hopepad08]

12:20 PM on 11/19/2010

And PBO was thinking, Thank God for small favors. Food always go down better when there is not a "turtle" staring at you.

[marykins123]

12:14 PM on 11/19/2010

I could care less about the little whiner Mitch, what I would like to know is WHEN will Obama get the "snub" message and start to do the "people's business"? Mr. President, when will you learn that there is not ONE, let me repeat - NOT ONE, within the GOP that will work with you for the next 2 years. Not Snowe, not Luggar, not Collins, and the list goes on. THEY are "on message" and the "message" is - you are going HOME in 2012. Mr. President, please do MY business!

[Tim The Enchanter]

09:25 AM on 11/20/2010

That's because Obama's not even sending a message of "I give a damn".

[maxwelldog]

09:45 AM on 11/20/2010

well, yeah, Tim, but
#1 You DON'T give a dang,
and
#2 Why would you think the President would say you DO? He doesn't even KNOW you.

[Tim The Enchanter]

11:22 AM on 11/19/2010

Here's a question for all you "liberal" constitutional "experts".

Why did it take a constitutional amendment in the early 1900s to ban alcohol, but just a few decades later, under FDR, Democrats were able to ban marijuana by just passing a law?

[PathofTotality]

12:47 PM on 11/19/2010

Different people?
Different times?
Differetn issues?
Different situation?
Different belief systems?
Different substance?

Pick a reason. BTW, I am not a liberal nor am I an expert.

[Tim The Enchanter]

04:07 PM on 11/19/2010

No, it's because FDR and Democrats in Congress decided that they could do ANYTHING in the "general welfare", whether there was a delate power to do so or not. IOW, the rules in Article 1, Section 8 no longer applied.

They simply decided it was in the "general welfare" to ban marijuana, though they were actually doing it to protect corporate profits..

[dureau]

03:06 PM on 11/19/2010

Easy answer. There were no enough votes to pass a law, but there were enough states have a convention.

[Tim The Enchanter]

04:51 PM on 11/19/2010

No, because without an amendment, it would be unconstitutional.

Then when FDR decided that "interstate commerce" means "any business activity at all, in or out of state" and "general welfare" wasn't just a rationale for taxation any more, well, Congress can do anything it wants.

[CaliTLC]

11:10 AM on 11/19/2010

Guess they are justtoodamntired of having to STAND ON THEIR FEET every time the President, a black man, enters a room. They can't stomach it any longer and thought they'd barftheirmeal.

[Tim The Enchanter]

04:52 PM on 11/19/2010

Wow, you really think about race a lot. Have you seen a therapist?

[CaliTLC]

05:11 PM on 11/19/2010

I don't think about it a lot. Just willing to call it as I see it.

[CaliTLC]

06:04 PM on 11/19/2010

Guess you had not noticed that the President is a black man. It's ALWAYS the big white elephant in the room.

[maxwelldog]

06:04 PM on 11/22/2010

I think a lot of people got "too danged tired" really soon after President Obama got in.
The crowds began writing him off in January 09...let's see here. When did he get into office?

Given a worse set of circumstances than even President Clinton, and three wars included.
My prayers (hey! Atheists pray, too, sometimes!) are with that man. I hope for his success in his monumental task, and I give no quarter to any who mount a frontal attack on him.

I may use a slingshot and shoot PENNIES at them, but, NO QUARTER!
(I'm a poor man, and quarters mean something. Heck, I am NOT going to throw away pennies, either.)

d=^))