Harry Reid is just a horrible, horrible Majority Leader. You'd think he was a member of Bush's inner circle or something.
Harry Reid -- who has (a) done more than any other individual to ensure that Bush's demands for telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers will be met in full and (b) allowed the Republicans all year to block virtually every bill without having to bother to actually filibuster -- went to the Senate floor yesterday and, with the scripted assistance of Mitch McConnell and Pat Leahy, warned Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and others that they would be selfishly wreaking havoc on the schedules of their fellow Senators (making them work over the weekend, ruining their planned "retreat," and even preventing them from going to Davos!) if they bothered everyone with their annoying, pointless little filibuster.
To do so, Reid announced that, unlike for the multiple filibusters from Republican colleagues, he would actually force Dodd and company to engage in a real filibuster. This is what Reid said:
[I]f people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate.[snip]
The idea "that this must be done immediately" is a Bush talking point that is absurd. There is no possible way that the Senate and House will agree to a bill and get it to the President before the Protect America Act expires. An extension is inevitable, and Reid knows that.
But he wants to spout this Bush claim that the Senate must comply with the President's orders immediately because he wants to pressure and shame Dodd, Feingold and any others who might support them out of filibustering telecom immunity and new warrantless eavesdropping powers. Dodd is ruining your weekend, preventing your fun retreat, not letting you go to Davos -- all because he wants to grandstand with "talking this to death." The President said he wants this done and we must give him what he wants and now, and I am acting with my good friend Mitch McConnell -- who is explicitly hoping to bully the House into passing the same bill in one day that the Senate passes, just like happened back in August -- to make sure this all happens with as little disruption and debate as possible.
If and when telecom immunity is passed (thereby forever extinguishing any hope of investigating and obtaining accountability for the President's illegal spying programs), and the Bush administration (and subsequent presidents) are vested permanently with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers to spy on Americans, it will be because Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership conspired to ensure that it happened. They aren't just standing by meekly, failing to oppose it. They are actively enabling it with as aggressive a posture as the Republicans could possibly have employed had they still been in control of the Congress.
[Click to read more details Glenn Greenwald - Your Harry Reid-led Senate in action]
The joke is old, but somehow appropriate for the ex-Las Vegas gambling commissioner, exactly what compromising photos do the Republicans have of Senator Reid? They've got to be brutally sensational, or else they've made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
