Sen. Harry Reid Needs to Step Down

It's no secret on my blog here that I'm not a big fan of Senator Harry Reid's. I'm just not impressed. Everything with him is always, "But the Republicans blocked us...." Well, Harry, no sh*t. What the hell did you expect them to do?

Obviously, I know why Congress' approval ratings are down in the teens. Ultimately, Congress has crap approval ratings because Congress hasn't found a way to stop George Bush. If the Dems could stop Bush, Congress would instantly win the approval of millions of frustrated Democrats, launching up those low Congressional approval ratings overnight.

But what the hell are the Democrats in Congress thinking? Reid has done an embarrassingly ineffective job, and then he goes on PBS with Ray Suarez yesterday to tout their (the Democrats') record since they won the majority? "Well," says Reid, "we've been able to accomplish quite a bit, but not very much, certainly not as much as I wanted to. I'm kind of frustrated, like the American people." Good grief. "There are a lot of things that need to be done," he adds. "We found a blockage on nearly everything we tried."

In just a few short months, Reid says, rather than two years, the Republicans filibustered the Democrats 62 times. The record for two years was 61. So, in just a few short months, the Republicans had more filibusters than in the history of the Congress before. Again, what did Reid expect? If the Republicans are going to change the way the filibuster has been used, then change the way you make them use the filibuster. Force them onto the floor to debate until they talk themselves sick.

Look, the Republicans are going to do whatever they have to do to get their way and to push through their agenda. Under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats obviously haven't been willing to do the same. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Reid and Pelosi are still playing politics, but the Republicans haven't been playing at it. For them it has been a fight to the death.

Things were made vastly worse when Congressional Democrats made the flawed political decision to focus on Bush's surge earlier this year rather than focusing on the war itself. By making it about a military tactic, rather than about the overall concept of the war and what it has cost and meant to America's safety, Reid opened the Democrats up to criticism if/when the surge ever showed even limited military results, and it has. Screw the surge! It should never have been about the surge. It was about the war, Harry! The war was wrong, should have been over, wasn't aiding American national security and was/is draining our treasure at the expense of needed domestic spending at home.

Reid is on record earlier this year saying that the "war is lost." For the love of God, why did he say that?? The war was never lost. The war was won, four years ago after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled. Since then, the war has been wrong, but not won or lost. Reid made the effort to end the war immeasurably more difficult with that totally ridiculous remark.

Now that the surge has succeeded in stabilizing the violence in Iraq, at least for the time being, Reid and most of the Democrats in Congress, because they chose to focus on the surge instead of the overall war, are toothless. Chances are, any hope to end the war before the next president takes office has been lost.

Thank you, Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi. Just like we always claim that the Bush administration must be held accountable for their actions, the same should be said of the two of you.

• December 22, 2007

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