If Mitch McConnell were freshness-dated, he’d have long since been yanked off the shelf. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work in Washington.

For proof of this, we need only consider the image of a clueless and utterly incapacitated 90-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein being around the Capitol in a wheelchair. Or being gently told by a colleague in the Senate chamber to stop soliloquizing and simply say, “Aye.”

And yet yesterday, there was McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in history, announcing that he’d be stepping down from his position as the Republican Party’s Senate minority leader.

But not until November.

“As the top Senate Republican since 2007,” reports The Wall Street Journal, “the Kentucky lawmaker wielded brass-knuckled tactics to install conservatives on the Supreme Court, defeat campaign-finance measures and see through the passage of major tax cuts in 2017. But as former President Donald Trump, a McConnell critic, marches toward the 2024 GOP nomination, the Senate leader has fallen out of step with major elements of his conference, most recently over his support for aid to Ukraine and his backing of a muscular U.S. role abroad.”

One man’s “muscular” is another man’s “globalist.”

Indeed, McConnell’s troubles in recent years were summed up aptly by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board:

The GOP leader’s influence in his own conference is waning. His support for aiding Ukraine — and for American leadership abroad — is no longer the zeitgeist in the Republican Party. The recent bipartisan border bill imploded on contact with Donald Trump’s campaign priorities. The sharks have been circling to pressure Mr. McConnell to depart, and Mr. Trump has never forgiven the leader for his speech condemning Mr. Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents,” said the 82-year-old McConnell in the well of the Senate, “is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter. So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

It would be uncharitable to say, “Good riddance,” but time and need have clearly passed Mitch McConnell by. When a man has trouble holding a press conference without slipping into catatonia, it’s time.

Wow

McConnell goes completely speechless for 24 seconds at this press conference today

He’s not healthy enough to hold this role any longer
Based on GOP whining about Biden I would assume they’re going to ask McConnell to step down tonight right? https://t.co/IrwcgHye2t pic.twitter.com/rrFBJJh4Nz

— NRGarrett (@NRGarrett) July 26, 2023

“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate,” McConnell continued, “I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work. A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, and his announcement yesterday led to immediate speculation about who’d replace him. Some of the names being thrown around include South Dakota’s John Thune, Wyoming’s John Barrasso, and Texas’s John Cornyn, but these three Johns only because they’re part of the McConnell wing of the party. Three far better — and far younger — options, in our opinion, would be Arkansas’s Tom Cotton, Texas’s Ted Cruz, or Missouri’s Josh Hawley.

Of course, much of what happens between now and the presidential election in November will determine the Senate’s next Republican leader. If Trump wins, we’ll likely see a Senate leader more to his liking. But if Trump loses, we’ll likely see one more to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s liking.

McConnell has clearly lost a few steps. Earlier in his career, he seemed to be playing 3-D chess to the Democrats’ checkers. He was the Road Runner to their Wile E. Coyote. But lately, he’d been getting rolled. And, indeed, McConnell had years ago assumed the role of “Least Popular Person in Washington.” And it wasn’t even close.

McConnell had also become more vindictive with age. His decision in 2022 to pull campaign funding from the likes of Senate candidates Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and instead spend it on the single worst Republican senator in the entire caucus, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, was unforgivable. Murkowski might’ve been a loyal McConnellite, but she was also a RINO who voted against confirming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and who votes with Joe Biden a sickening 67% of the time.

Despite all this, McConnell’s legacy must include the judiciary. And for his dogged and determined work there, we must be eternally grateful. No one is more responsible for the conservative makeup of today’s Supreme Court than Mitch McConnell. No one. Think about it: He almost singlehandedly kept Merrick Garland off the High Court during the Obama years. For that alone, we conservatives should cut him serious slack. That was Antonin Scalia’s seat, after all, and it now belongs to Brett Kavanaugh. Beyond the High Court, McConnell is also largely to thank for confirming a slew of Trump-appointed judges and justices. But it’s time for new Republican leadership in the Senate. And it’s long past time for McConnell to go.

But, again, why wait until November?

For what it’s worth, Joe Biden says he’s “sorry to hear that [McConnell is] stepping down.” And why might that be? Oh, sure, both men are among the dwindling ranks of Ukraine funding hawks, and McConnell has been easier for Democrats to work with in recent years. But perhaps more important is that McConnell’s decision to step down from leadership illustrates — at exactly the wrong time — that maybe some people are too old for certain jobs.

Updated to include a few words from Joe Biden.