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“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

OK -- I Might Decide I Like Harry Reid

According to The Hill, Harry is finally playing hardball:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has deployed unusually tough tactics to pressure Republicans to back Wall Street reform — a move that could shore up his liberal base, but one that GOP centrists say is counterproductive.

Reid will need at least one Republican vote in order to move the legislation forward, but centrists in that party caution that the Democratic leader’s actions have been divisive and unnecessary.

"Counterproductive" -- ya think?  Of course the "centrist" Republicans (who are only slightly more right-wing than "centrist" Democrats) are going to say that -- their Wall Street paymasters and the wingnut party leadership are going to make them look like -- well, spoiled five-year-olds, just like Lindsay Graham.

Reid shows no signs of backing down and has even suggested the Senate no longer has any Republicans who could be considered moderate.

On Tuesday, Republicans voted to defeat a motion to begin debate on Wall Street reform legislation.

It was the second time in two days that Reid scheduled a vote on the matter, and he plans a third vote on Wednesday and a fourth on Thursday, according to a Democratic aide.

Reid also scheduled a vote Monday evening, during the dinner hour, to force senators to show up on the chamber floor, a move that was seen as punishment for Republicans voting to block the Wall Street bill earlier in the day.

Reid could bring lawmakers back to the chamber again after regular hours to discuss Wall Street reform, disrupting their evening schedules.

Yee-hah!  Maybe the Democrats have finally figured out that the Republicans are not operating in good faith (which, come to think of it, the Republicans have said, almost in so many words).

I hope he keeps scheduling vote after vote after vote until the Republicans finally cave.  From the urban heartland, this is making the Republicans look just like what they are:  waterboys for the oligarchy.

Chuck Grassley (R-Bank of America) is priceless:

Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the only Republican to vote for Democratic legislation regulating derivatives, said the tactic “sours” the mood of the Senate.

“The reason it sours it is because [the Democrats] keep wanting bipartisanship, but they’re always defining bipartisanship as one Republican and 59 Democrats; that’s not bipartisanship,” Grassley said.

Grassley said he told Reid on Monday that he had a problem with the leader’s strategy of putting political pressure on Republicans in hopes of getting one or two to defect.



"'Sours' the mood"? Are you serious? And Grassley has problems with Reid putting political pressure on Republicans. Well, sweetheart, turnabout's fair play, you know?

If we think back a day or two to Lindsay Graham (R-Good Ol' Boi) and his snit about Reid wanting to move immigration reform to the front burner, I think we'll see a pattern: the Senate really is all about process and perquisites and collegiality, and substance be damned. I think the Republicans want to hold on to that because that way the don't actually have to do anything, you see? (They've already demonstrated quite graphically that they're not interested in actually governing -- it's called the George W. Bush administration.)

2 comments:

Piet said...

This doesn't sound all that punishing to me, although it's certainly nice to see Reid developing something like a spinal column. What will be telling, if anything is, will be the repeated votes against discussion of the financial reforms bill; but I doubt the Democrats will make effective use of that in the next elections. They could, of course, but it would be such a revolution to see them actually do it.

Hunter said...

It's not all that punishing to anyone who actually has to work for a living and whose continued employment actually depends on getting results.

I'm afraid you're right, though -- the Democrats seem to have lost all political sense (which to a Chicagoan is very weird).