A report on the contraction, not the possessive.
Would the voters of Nevada get rid of this guy already? I'm just glad I don't share my alma mater with him. He's an SUU & Utah St. guy. So there's that.
His memoir was just released in paperback form (not that I was waiting for the Amazon price drop or anything) and Mark Hemingway has posted his review at NRO.
I've recently become fascinated with the "blurbs" publishers or authors or whoever choose to put on their books from amongst the many reviews of their books. One that struck me as funny and not at all flattering was on the cover of the Ken Follett novel I'm reading at the moment. The New York Daily News called it "quick-paced." Wow. When that is the type of praise your book is getting, you've got problems. Fortunately, Follett was able to redeem himself with other, better books. Somehow I don't think Reid will get another shot.
Anyway, here's Hemingway on the reception/review of Reids memoir:
Every other major media outlet has been standoffish. Take this blurb from the Washington Post, proudly emblazoned on the back of the paperback edition: “Recounts fights with everyone from classmates to the man who would eventually become his father-in-law, preparing him for a senatorial life of battling the Bush White House and Republican filibusters.” Beware the value-neutral blurb: In fact, the Post never reviewed the book — the quote comes from a gossip column published a month before the book’s release. One of the most powerful men in Washington published a book, and the entire journalistic establishment’s reaction seems to have been, “If you can’t say something nice . . . ”
So he's been a belligerent cuss from day one, eh? Does that really surprise anybody?
A couple of years ago, Reid gave a speech at BYU as a part of one of their forums. Ostensibly, it was to appease all the haters who thought BYU was being partisan by having Vice President Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney give a talk at commencement (President Bush couldn't make it).
VP Cheney didn't say a single thing that could have been construed as partisan. Whereas Senator Reid, given his turn, made a complete fool of himself by giving what amounted to one of his usual senatorial rants against President Bush, Evangelical Christians, etc. He was his usual, classy self.
The best example (or worst) of Reid's classiness from his memoir is pointed out, per usual, by DrewM @ Ace:
While no one expects Reid to praise George W. Bush, the degree to which he is judgmental and catty regarding the former president pretty much speaks for itself. Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a [witch].’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”
What’s the purpose of recording for posterity a bit of hearsay defaming a woman Reid admits he has no cause to dislike? Is Reid really so petty as to insult someone’s mother? Why yes, yes he is.
On the one hand, I'm extremely put off by Reid's antics. On the other, I'm incredibly amused by the damage he and his partner in crime, Nancy Pelosi, do to their party. It's a commentary on the party leadership as a whole that these two are the leaders of the Democrat party in Congress.
Bravo, Democrats, bravo.
