Harry Reid's Nuts 6

A report on the contraction, not the possessive.

This is turning from a sometime feature to a daily feature.

For Senator Reid, everything is about maximizing political gain. The best example of this was the delight Senator Reid took in American pre-Surge problems and the seats it would gain Democrats in the 2006 elections (for entertainment purposes, see this. Love Dennis Miller). This man is shameless. Absolutely shameless.

The latest example, via Glenn Thrush at Politico, is tamer, but of a piece with the Iraq example.

Q: How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy's death affect things?

A: I think it's going to help us. He hasn't been around for some time. We're going to have a new chairman of that committee, it'll be, I don't know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd, (D-Conn.). He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, (D-Iowa), whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy) will be a help. He's an inspiration for us. That was the issue of his life and he didn't get it done.

This is also right in line with Rahm Emanuel's personal political philosophy that one ought never let a crisis go to waste. True leftist Democrats survey the political landscape and opportunistically take advantage of any crisis or mourning, sympathetic public.

I guess I should just be glad that Senator Reid is just as willing to capitalize on the death of one of his own--consistency!--as he was on the deaths of American soldiers.

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Harry Reid's Nuts 5

A report on the contraction, not the possessive.

"What'd he do this time," you may be asking yourself. Oh, pick a fight with his hometown newspaper when he's already trailing 2 no-name Republicans in the most recent polling of his Senate race next year.

The WSJ Political Diary's John Fund has the story:

Majority Leader Harry Reid meant to make some news at last week's Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, but not the kind that subsequently filled the local media.

Mr. Reid came to the forum to reveal his plans on the Senate health care debate. He told the business leaders he would give bipartisanship a two-week trial period after the Senate returns on September 8. If Republicans refuse to pass a bill, Mr. Reid pledged to use "reconciliation," a set of budget rules that would allow him to muscle government-run health care through with a bare majority rather than the 60 votes required to beat a filibuster.

His speech didn't sit well with many members, who questioned if the reordering of one-seventh of the nation's economy should be done by turning Senate rules into a pretzel. But the real explosion came when his home state's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, accused Mr. Reid of using "bully threats" against the paper in his speech and in private remarks to one of the paper's executives.

Sherman Frederick, publisher of the Review-Journal, says that before Mr. Reid's speech last Wednesday, Mr. Reid in a receiving line met the paper's director of advertising, Bob Brown, and bluntly told him: "I hope you go out of business." Mr. Brown says he was flummoxed because while his paper's editorials have been critical of Mr. Reid's voting record, the paper's advertising director has nothing to do with its opinion pages.

But Mr. Reid wasn't finished. In his public speech, Mr. Reid told the audience that the only reason he wanted the Review-Journal to continue selling any ads was that the more liberal Las Vegas Sun was delivered as a supplement inside it.

Mr. Frederick, the paper's publisher, responded in a column on Sunday. He said he always thought that Mr. Reid "was elected to office to protect Nevadans, not sound like he's shaking them down. . . . I can only imagine how he pressures businesses and individuals who don't have the wherewithal of the Review-Journal." The column then laid down what amounted to a declaration of war from the paper: "We won't allow you to bully us. And if you try it with anyone else, count on going through us first. It's a promise to our readers, not to you, Sen. Reid."

No doubt Mr. Reid didn't intend to stir up such a ruckus, and it's entirely possible Mr. Frederick is exaggerating what the notoriously ill-tempered and peevish Mr. Reid really was trying to convey. But on the other hand, Mr. Reid isn't either apologizing or explaining away his remarks.

Mr. Reid already trails two largely unknown Republicans in published polls in his re-election battle next year. The last thing he needs is a newspaper that's convinced itself that either he goes or its economic independence is in jeopardy.

That Senator Reid has risen to become Democratic Senate Majority leader is, I think, a sad commentary on the state of the Democrat party.

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Harry Reid's Nuts 4

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.

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Harry Reid's Nuts 3

A report on the contraction, not the possessive.

I've kind of neglected this feature over the last few months. Not for lack of material, but for lack of interest. Even when Reid said or did something ridiculous (on a fairly regular basis), I just couldn't seem to find the motivation to post anything about it.

Given that he's now saying outrageous things about Iraq, like, he had anything at all to do with the success there, I couldn't help myself.



Of course, Ace says it best:

This is the spin that we all knew was coming. Indeed, we've already seen it a dozen times, but not from Harry "The War is Lost, the Surge Has Failed" Reid. The claim, of course, is that by arguing for surrender and defeat, the liberal defeatists were actually arguing for a change in strategy that would result in victory.

Bear in mind, this is especially galling coming from him, as he did not merely say the war is lost. He also was a prime opponent of the surge, arguing it could never work. And then, when the surge began, he said it was doomed. And then, even when it succeeded, he declared the surge a failure.

And now that the surge is so obviously a victory that even he can't deny it, he says You're welcome. I did that.

Whatever else you may believe about Iraq, the myth that Democrats had anything whatsoever to do with the positive outcome, ought not enter into the realm of the remotely possible.

And that's one of the great disappointments: They could have been constructive. They could have worked with people like John McCain, who called for something approximating The Surge at least 2 years ahead of The Surge.

But they didn't. They played politics with the war, called it "lost," accused our troops of all sorts of bad things--terrorizing women and kids, for instance--and on and on. Now that things are hunky dory, they--Harry Reid in the forefront--want to take credit for the very thing, against which, they actively worked.


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Harry Reid's Nuts 2: A Report On The Contraction, Not The Possesive

Image link
Harry Reid's Nuts 1

Things have been relatively quiet out of the Reid camp for the last month or so. In fact, the last Big Thing from the Senate was that they passed the Protect American Act when Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the House Democrats wouldn't.

For those scoring at home, mark Reid's capitulation a win for America, Republicans, and President Bush. Mark it a loss for moveon.org and paranoid Daily Kossacks.

This post should probably be titled "Harry Reid's Fiscally Irresponsible Just Like Every Other Tax & Spend Democrat," but that doesn't have the virtue of being punny. So, we'll stick with the established meme.

Roll Call reports that Harry Reid won't back a ban on earmarks. Probably because he doesn't want to run afoul of John Murtha.

Does anyone remember the Democratic campaign promises of 2006?

Voters threw out the free-spending Republicans and replaced them with free-spending Democrats.

Bravo, voters, bravo.

*Update 4:50pm MST: This might have been a better target of this feature: Reid Compares GOP Filibusters to Aggravated Assault.


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Harry Reid's Nuts: A Report On The Contraction, Not The Possessive

(hat tip: our brother Matt)
Been looking for a gimmicky feature for the blog and after listening to Senator Harry Reid on the Doug Wright show on KSL this morning on the way up Little Cottonwood Canyon, Matt suggested using Harry Reid. Done and done.

Never thought we'd see the day where we missed Tom Daschle. Okay, still don't miss Daschle. But love the picture.

On KSL, in the midst of a heartfelt memorial about the impact President Gordon B. Hinckley had on the public perception of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Doug Wright asked Harry to recall his favorite moment with President Gordon B. Hinckley.

The moment Reid chose to recall? One that makes him look like a crybaby. He said that he attended a meeting in Las Vegas and despite being one of the highest ranking somethings, he wasn't given a seat at the head table. So President Hinckley, apparently reading Reid's mind about the perceived slight, spoke for a few minutes about Reid.

In Harry's mind, Hinckley's mention of Read amounted to a "chastise[ment]" of the event organizers (and anyone else who has a problem with Reid's Democratic politics, so there) for their un-Christian-like behavior in denying him a seat at the big table. Puh-lease. Seems more like a case of Harry projecting his own inferiority complex plus a healthy dose of narcissism.

Remember, this is the same Harry Reid who, when looking at polling data about Iraq in early spring 2007, was practically jumping for joy about the future prospects for Democrats if America lost in Iraq. Yup, Dems, this Senate leader makes you proud to be an American. Who else could be cheerleader to America's enemies? Who else could be gleeful that a loss for America would mean an electoral win for his own party?

Yup, Harry's nuts. And you'll hear all about it, all the time, here at OL&L.


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