I'd so wanted to believe that Mitch McConnell didn't have Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome . . .

. . . but consider his recent exchange with Reince Preibus:

When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell bumped into Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus near Capitol Hill recently, the discussion turned to the man who has become the undisputed public face of the government shutdown: Republican Ted Cruz.

The Republican National Committee staff was about to send an email blast urging the party faithful, and their wallets, to stand behind Mr. Cruz in his battle against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. No one inside the RNC expected a backlash. After all, Mr. Cruz had become a hot commodity since his all-night filibuster on the Senate floor, and Mr. Reid has long been a favorite inspiration for Republican donors.

But Mr. McConnell politely cautioned Mr. Priebus at their chance encounter, suggesting that the party chief should not look like he was taking sides in the tactical dispute between Mr. Cruz or other members of the GOP’s raucous tea party faction and the party’s congressional leaders. Mr. Priebus countered that he saw himself as chairman of the entire party and would support any Republican, including Mr. Cruz, in battling Democrats.

The RNC sent an unequivocal email soon afterward, under Mr. Priebus‘ name: “In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I will stand with Ted Cruz any day,” he said in the message, extolling Mr. Cruz’s anti-Obamacare efforts. “As Republicans, we must remain true to our principles and fight to protect the American people from this reckless law.”

Soon, establishment Republicans who had chafed for months about the ego, tactics and strident focus of the junior senator from Texas were on the phone to staff. They complained that the RNC was picking sides in an intraparty struggle between establishment leaders and a new generation of headstrong conservatives epitomized by Mr. Cruz.

Do these establishment "old bulls" have any inkling how ineffective their modus operandi for the last several decades?

Thomas Sowell does .

We are in the midst of a national crisis, immediately affecting millions of Americans and potentially affecting the kind of country this will become if ObamaCare goes into effect -- and yet, with multiple television network cameras focused on Speaker Boehner as he emerged from the White House, he couldn't be bothered to prepare a statement that would help clarify a confused situation, full of fallacies and lies.

Boehner was not unique in having a blind spot when it comes to recognizing the importance of articulation and the need to put some serious time and effort into presenting your case in a way that people outside the Beltway would understand. On the contrary, he has been all too typical of Republican leaders in recent decades.

When the government was shut down during the Clinton administration, Republican leaders who went on television to tell their side of the story talked about "OMB numbers" versus "CBO numbers" -- as if most people beyond the Beltway knew what these abbreviations meant or why the statistics in question were relevant to the shutdown. Why talk to them in Beltway-speak?

When Speaker Boehner today goes around talking about the "CR," that is just more of the same thinking -- or lack of thinking. Policy wonks inside the Beltway know that he is talking about the "continuing resolution" that authorizes the existing level of government spending to continue, pending a new budget agreement.

But, believe it or not, there are lots of citizens and voters outside the Beltway. And what is believed by those people whom too many Republicans are talking past can decide not only the outcome of this crisis but the fate of the nation for generations to come.

You might think that the stakes are high enough for Republicans to put in some serious time trying to clarify their message. 

It's worse than being merely articluate.  When you speak the plain truth, a la Ted Cruz, they attempt to muzzle and marginalize you.