If I’ve learned one thing so far this semester while studying in Washington, DC, it’s that politics, and especially Congress, is one giant soap opera. Online publications like Politico and The Hill read like tabloids, constantly brimming with articles about who is talking trash about who, and what new alliances are being forged. A recent star of this attention is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who has been making these headlines on a daily basis. Some would say that is a bad thing, but (I hate to say it), it makes me an even bigger fan.
Harry Reid is the kind of Senator who is blatantly aggressive. Just a few weeks ago, he called out Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for being too partisan. According to Politico, Senator Reid commented further that Senator McCain needed to “get over” his loss in the presidential election. More recently, he criticized the Senate Republicans for crying foul over potential use of reconciliation in passing health care reforms. CBS News quoted him as saying that Republicans “need to stop crying about reconciliation like it has never happened before.”
As Senate Minority Leader, Reid was known for giving then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist a hard time. He is also known, as evidenced by his comment on Senator McCain above, for being brutally frank about his opinions. According to an NPR profile of Reid, he has called former President George W. Bush, “a loser and a liar.”
What people don’t know about Reid is that he is a practicing Mormon. As NPR says, he is pro-life and supports abortion only in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger, or in the case of rape or incest. He is personally against gay marriage and even voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. I find it personally funny that such a Senator is often the direct target of conservative accusations of liberal extremism.
Senator Harry Reid is the definition of a strong leader, and we need many more like him in the Democratic Party.
The statements he made about McCain and telling him to get over it were ones rooted in partisanship as a underhanded swipe for the attention of the press, such as the hill, roll call, CQ politics and Politico. Reconciliation has been done before for budgetary reasons. People cried foul when Bush used it for tax cuts yet that’s budget related. Your fellow democrat Senator Byrd made that rule when the reconciliation procedure was debated. The process is designed to expedite emergency budgetary issues; not legislative ideological issues. It got so bad; your party’s leaders considered passing healthcare reform without ever voting on it in the house. Strong leader; maybe for your caucus. For the institution of Congress.. Not so sure.
Glad to see you’re reading my work, David! I agree that Harry Reid could do better at leading the Republicans as well, but to be quite honest the Republican leadership is making cooperation very difficult. Their continued obstructionism – they’re on track to break filibuster records – of the legislative agenda of the Democrats simply because it is that of the other party is making it useless for Harry Reid and other Democrat leaders to work with them. If they’re just going to filibuster anything supported by the Democrats, why should the Democrats bother to court them? This is the stance I believe Harry Reid is taking.