Mark Nicholas at Bluegrass Report thinks Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has seriously screwed up over the Larry Craig mess.

Now that U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) appears to be fighting to keep his job, it's hard not to wonder whether Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R) has badly botched the handling of this matter by overcompensating for the gross mishandling of the Mark Foley mess in the House.

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I love the fact that the Republicans are again finding themselves weighed-down by the scandal anchor, but the way McConnell has been handling the Craig matter has really rubbed me the wrong way. But more importantly, I think McConnell is killing his own caucus by botching this matter -- which now seems headed toward an intra-party collision with Craig staying and fighting -- at the worst possible time for Republicans: General Petraeus is days away from trying to save the GOP from the Iraq debacle.

UPDATE (5:26 PM): Apparently, McConnell has just flip-flopped on Craig, holding a press conference to announce Craig intends to stay in his Senate seat if he can get the charges dismissed. Amazing. So much for McConnell's earlier dismissal of any notion of a Craig return.

It would be too, too delicious if what brings down Mitch, who is widely believed in both Kentucky and D.C. to be gay himself, is a gay sex scandal that he mishandles because of his inability to deal directly and honestly with homosexuality among the GOP faithful.