How freaked out was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about a possible election challenge from movie star Ashley Judd? So freaked that in February he assembled a secret meeting of advisors on how to use a "wealth of material" from the actress' mental health history to paint her as an egomaniacal "mentally unbalanced" anti-Christian hysterical lady.
And, of course, they recorded the meeting.
On the 12-minute clip from that strategy session, obtained by Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief David Corn (of 47 percent video fame), McConnell can be heard telling his oppo crew: "This is the Whac-A-Mole period of the campaign…when anybody sticks their head up, do them out."
His brain trust then takes over. "I refer to [Judd] as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material," the leading aide offered.
Much of those riches, the aide continued, centered around Judd's struggles with depression and family fame:
She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented...you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.
The aides note that crazy ladies clearly also think crazy things about basic building blocks of American civilization, like consumerism, Christian patriarchy, and hating the homosexuals. "Like I said," the top aide told McConnell and Co., "you know, we're still drilling down and there's a wealth of material, and it's just hard to get all the way around it." They must have been so bummed when Judd declined to run.
[Mother Jones, Images via AP]