Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are thinking about writing a letter - together with Howard Dean - instructing the Democratic super-delegates to get off the stick and pick a candidate already. I hope they do just that. Wouldn’t it be droll if Reid and Pelosi tried to bully the super-delegates into line and were told to stuff it?
Harry Reid seems to believe that the founding fathers of the US were very strongly pro-earmarks: “As we look back in history, the Founding Fathers would be cringing to hear people talking about eliminating earmarks.” (more…)
In an ironic turn of events, Harry Reid called General Peter Pace incompetent during a conference call with some leading progressive bloggers. The Politico reported about this yesterday already, but the bloggers involved all said they did not remember Reid saying this. So, I decided to wait for more information.
We’ve got it: Reid, indeed, called Pace incompetent. The defense of those involved is now that one should look at the context in which it was said. When I look at the context I can still only conclude one thing: Reid called Pace a “yes-man” and “incompetent.”
It was a confidential conference, so most bloggers didn’t tape it. One seemingly did. From the transcript:
REID: Look what this Justice Department has done. And now, with the Surgeon General, we have a man here who has written articles that I think are a little questionable as to in our modern society. He’s a medical doctor. And don’t worry, he’s gonna be looked at very closely.
BLOGGER QUESTION: What’s the next step on Gonzales?
REID: Well, I guess the President, he’s gotten rid of Pace because he could not get confirmed here in the Senate. Pace is also a yes-man for the President. I told him to his face, I laid it out last time he came in to see me. I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was. But he got rid of his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, but he still hangs on to this failed Attorney General. And I guess he’s gonna [inaudible]. We’re gonna keep focusing on it. Every day that goes by, it seems he keeps giving. Now we’ve learned that the immigration judges are all graduates of Regent University I guess.
REID AIDE: Guys, I think we have time to take one more question…
What’s funny is that certain progressive bloggers accused The Politico of making up news. BarbinMD participated in the conference and says that (s)he does not remember Reid calling Pace incompetent. Nor did one of the other participents remember anything like it.
Strange - such a remark, I’m sure you would remember it. Seems to me that these bloggers have assimilated quite well in the beltway.
“I don’t recall.”
I have to say that, when reading Bob Woodward’s State of Denial there is one thing one learns about Pace: He is a fine General. He is a fine serviceman. But he is, perhaps, a bit too weak for the job he currently has. He should have fought back against Rumsfeld.
Of course, there is a difference between not fighting back hard enough and being ‘incompetent.’ And there is also a big difference between some blogger at Daily Kos calling Pace incompetent and the Senate majority leader doing so.
Paul Kane reports for the Washington Post:
The Senate yesterday rejected a bid to conduct a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, as Republicans declined to defend the embattled presidential confidant but rejected the effort as a political stunt.
On a 53 to 38 roll call, Democrats fell seven votes short of the 60 needed to invoke cloture and begin the debate on a resolution condemning Gonzales. Seven Republicans broke with the administration and refused to support the attorney general.
They declined to defend Gonzales, but they are not willing to go on record saying they have lost all confidence in his ability to do his job. Talking about political cowardice.
Are the Democrats trying to score points? Sure, of course they are. But that does not meant that Republicans should automatically oppose the Democrats. In this particular case, it seems to me that it is in America’s best interest if Gonzales resigns. A no confidence vote might accomplish that (might).
What matters is - speaking as a foreigner here - what is in the best interest of Amerca; not what is in the best interest of the Republican Party.
I do not quite see how having an incompetent Attorney General is in America’s best interest.
Meanwhile, Jles Crittenden has a post up at Forward Movement about the inability of the US Congress to get things done. Lame-duck indeed.
More at Down With Tyranny!
Michelle Malkin has a post up, linking to this post at Hot Air about Harry Reid. It seems that good ol’ Reid referred to the 12 million illegal aliens in America as “undocumented Americans.”
Something tells me Reid favors amnesty for all - after all, they are Americans already.
Since I am not American, I cannot possibly get angry about this. If, however, I was an American, this would not exactly fall on good ground with me either. They may live in America, they may be good people, but they are not Americans. They may be Mexicans living in America, they may be Puerto Ricans living in America, but they are not Americans. Repeat after me.
Washington Whispers reports:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush’s devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie “pro forma” session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he’s the new sheriff in town.
It seems that the left side of the blogosphere suddenly likey Harry Reid.
It’s a bit sad that it’s necessary but a good call by Reid. It is not often that I agree with what Reid wants and / or does, but this is a good decision.
David Broder wrote a very interesting column for the Washington Post about… Harry Reid. Broder’s thesis: Reid is just as incompetent as Alberto Gonzales.
Here’s a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.
If you answered ” Harry Reid,” give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.
President Bush’s highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”
[…]
On “Fox News Sunday,” Schumer offered this clarification of Reid’s off-the-cuff comment. “What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that’s been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can’t win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win.”
Wait - so the war is lost but can still be won? That means that it’s not lost then, is it? If something is lost, one cannot possibly win it anymore.
Broder:
Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word “is” has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.
Broder then gives some examples of other, umh, slips of the tongue from Reid, like, o, say, calling George W. Bush a “loser;” Alan Greenspan, “one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington” (looks who’s talking); and saying that Frist has “no institutional integrity”, because Frist planned to leave the Senate to fulfill a term-limits pledge.
Of course, Reid later had to apologize for these remarks.
Josh Marshall rightfully points out that Gonzales is - still - much worse than Reid (for one thing, Gonzales has probably been lying about certain matters), but Broder’s main point still stands: Reid is incompetent. He is causing too much controversies, he is not careful enough, he is pandering to the base about matters like abortion, when exposed he contradicts himself and makes no sense whatsoever… He says things that do not just hurt him, but the Democratic Party as a whole…
I do not quite understand why the Democrats elected Reid to be their leader in the Senate. Surely there must be better candidates out there?
(Of course there are - the Dems also have some great politicians)
Also read this post by Ed Morrissey: he exposes and debunks, what he calls, “the five myths of Reid. In his update, he links to this story: Republican Duncan Hunter called on Reid to resign as Senate Majority Leader.
Boy o boy, how the Democrats are hurting themselves. It is unbelievable. Whether one agrees with what Republicans are saying and doing right now or not, one has to admit one thing: Reid has caused this problem himself by acting stupid.
I once heard that if the Democrats can be trusted to do one thing, it is to lose, when it seems impossible for them to do so. Is that what we see happening right now? Granted, the Republican noise machine is in full swing and jumps on everything that the Democrats do, but point is: the Dems should not provide political opponents with so much ammunition.
This is amazing: the Democrats seem to be determined to make themselves look as bad as possible.
First Harry Reid said publicly that the war in Iraq is lost, now he told CNN that he does not care what General Patraeus says, he does not believe him anyway. You can watch the video at Hot Air.
More at Hugh Hewitt who writes: “Click over and watch the video. I guarantee it will anger the blood.”
Quite amazing, it has to be said. Even if American conservatives are doing everything they can to make Reid look as bad as they possibly can, it is still Reid’s own fault: he gives political opponents all the ammunition they need, and then some.
Also: combine this with Reid’s “the war is lost’ comment and with reports that Democrats are ducking brievings on Iraq and the situation becomes quite worrisome. National interest or partisan interest, what’s more important? Should be an easy question to answer, sadly, for some, it’s not.
An interesting column at the Washington Post by Robert D. Novak, about the US Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, and the reaction of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to this ruling.
Right after the court decided to uphold before mentioned act, Harry Reid said that “I would only say that this isn’t the only decision that a lot of us wish that Alito weren’t there and O’Connor were there.” When Novak pointed out to Reid that he voted in favor of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act and, then, asked whether the senate majority leader changed his mind on this issue, Reid said “no not at all. I just don’t like what Alito has done on other cases.”
Well, strange that he brings it up right after a controversial ruling (in response to it actually) then, but, fair enough. So, “what other cases,” Novak wondered.
“I can’t recall,” Reid replied, but he promised aides would let me know.
They did so several hours later. Out of more than 50 decisions that Alito has participated in, Reid disagreed with four. These include Alito dissents, in 5 to 4 opinions, on mandating the federal government to consider global warming and the Hamdan case granting habeas corpus rights to U.S. detainees. Alito concurred in a 5 to 4 decision limiting federal regulation of wetlands and wrote the majority opinion in a 6 to 3 outcome (concurred with by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) rejecting federal funding of an educational consultant under the disabilities act. But there is no record of Reid criticizing Alito’s court opinions before Wednesday.
After this, Novak quotes Thomas Carper, “the low-profile junior senator from Delaware,” who voted in favor of the Act, as saying: “I think a number of people who voted for it thought that the court would ultimately strike it down.”
Novak:
Carper’s comment points to Democrats who are partial pro-lifers when it comes to partial birth abortion. The presence of Alito in place of O’Connor undermines that posture. The party’s presidential candidate will be on record regarding partial birth abortion. How many Democrats will follow suit in 2008?
It is all political posturing. Make no mistake about it. When people like Harry Reid cry foul, one first has to look at their record, because it quite possible that they supported the same thing they are crying foul about now, just because they think that doing so might make them more popular among ‘the base.’
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