What's good for the Senate trumps what's best for the country?

That explains a great deal.

Reid is pitiful. The guy should be embarrassed. What a wimp. LBJ busted balls and got lots of great stuff accomplished. Reid tickles his colleagues' nuts and the result is mediocre legislation.

Maybe Rahm can be the Enforcer ...

remember when he was first anointed and all the commentary was what a fearless leader reid was; a boxer unafraid to take on the vegas mob.

what a fucking punk.

In an ideal world, the media and Obama should be educating the public, who in turn should be putting pressure on their senators. But the very least Reid could do is insist that members hold a far different standard for cloture votes. To deny the majority a vote should be a rare event. But to deny your own party that vote is extreme hubris.

Reid needs to go. Ineffective from day one.

When can we get a new one? I vote for Bernie Sanders I-VT. Saw him the other night on Olberman/Schuster (I think), talking about the public option legislation in the senate and he, well, he kicked ass: slap down that 'r' filibuster, NOW, and then let the Dems vote their conscience, such as it is.

Snatching defeat from the kid gloves of victory.

-Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader)

It's hard to argue with the opinions of Reid here. He probably is a genuinely nice guy. Unfortunately for the job he's got we need someone who at least has the ability to be a prick from time to time.

After this admission, that he can't or won't do the job, shouldn't the words 'I therefore resign' be forthcoming? These are very serious times, with challenges and opportunities such as the Democrats have not seen in many decades and he offers a genteel style over real substance.

Well, I guess I should be glad Reid at least has a realistic assessment of his skills and style - imagine how embarrassing it would be if he thought he was being a hard-ass, kickin' butt and takin' names?

Now if only I could understand why he thinks cajoling folks to do the right thing is sufficient for Senate Majority Leader.

He's just got to go. I had a friend and if I could hear him now he'd say that "Harry Reid is a limp dick". The Senate needs someone who can pull disparate democrats in line. Harry Reid is weak and the Democratic and Republican Senate caucuses know it. With all the challenges this country faces right now I'd rather have someone in charge with some muscle rather than someone who takes a "softly, softly" approach.

If he was being gentlemenly to his own party that would be one thing. But Reid goes out of his way to give the opposition every opportunity and advantage.

I remember well when Reid first got the job as majority leader. The war funding bill was going up and people were lining up for a fight. Reid went on the Sunday talk shows and announced to the world that the bill would pass with no meaningful timetables for withdrawal and pretty much give Bush everything he wanted. This was THREE WEEKS before the vote. The debate hadn't even started yet and Reid threw in the towel. He undercut his own party and the electorate that sent a clear concise message in 2006.

I knew from that moment forward Reid would be a disaster as majority 'leader'.

Senator Milquetoast really enjoys being this ineffective and namby pamby "leader" because it reinforces the power of his position.

He can listen to people bitch all day long and at the end of the day he can sit back and smile beatifically and shuffle around and revel in the fact that he can be a road block and a speed bump and a wet noodle and no one can do shit about it.

The scrappy pugilist from wherever the f**k NV turned out to be soft in the middle with his primary interest being an abiding love for the perks of being a senator without accomplishing a damn thing that he was elected to do.

Harry Reid. Place Holder. With a vengeance.

Reid/Feinstein/Lieberman = Axis of two faced capitulation.

As a friend of mine put it, "This is what you get if you let cats choose their herder."

I hate to even SAY this because the anger seems so great BUT why SHOULD he have to be the bad guy, twist arms, threaten people? Why aren't the DEMOCRATS (or whichever the majority party is) showing some guts? There is a LEADER and then there is an ENFORCER. I dare to say that you guys probably HATED DeLay but now want to sink in the gutter with HIS tactics???

But I'm not very good at twisting arms.

Not every good?

I'd have never guessed.

Why is this man still the majority leader?

Out & About's HISTORICAL ANALOGIES FOR SEN. HARRY REID:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) : Senate Republicans :: Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, U.S.A. : Confederate Army of No. Virginia;

Harry Reid : President Barack Obama :: George B. McClellan : President Abraham Lincoln; and

Harry Reid : Senate legacy :: George B. McClellan : U.S. Civil War history.

Reid is a Mormon, and a relatively conservative Democrat. I think his ineffectiveness is deliberate, and hides the fact that most issues in his tenure have been decided the way he wanted. I suspect he doesn't personally favor any of these progressive things Democrats have failed to pass repeatedly over the last 3 years.

I dare to say that you guys probably HATED DeLay but now want to sink in the gutter with HIS tactics???

Oh yes, my concern troll friend, that is all we hated about Delay, his tactics. Certainly any "leader" who prods his herd would do it JUST like HotTub Tom. No difference what-so-ever. And abosolutely no doubt we want a leader who is JUST like Tom!!!

Yeah, that's what we are calling for...

Reid's a wormy milqetoast and we'd be better off with him not leading. But more important than his approach to his own, is his wormy acquiescence to Republicans and his avoidance of changing rules to suppress filibustering, the "requirement of 60" etc.

McClellan, heh - I remember a McClellan impersonator called "loser" by a spectator at a Civil/WBTS recreation. BTW, if the Southern states withdrew then they weren't "States" of the US anymore, and so it couldn't be "The War Between the States."

I dare to say that you guys probably HATED DeLay but now want to sink in the gutter with HIS tactics???

Posted by: SYSPROG at 3:16 PM

The only alternative to Reid does not have to be a malevolent joke that acts like a criminal asshat such as Delay.

A leader is supposed to be leader because he understands the mechanics of the senate and knows how to use them to achieve partisan goals. Democrats and Republicans remember? Different parties? Partisan goals? Different ways of seeing the world? One side thinking they might have better ideas and working to achieve them? Needing someone who thinks that way also in a position of power to help make that happen?

Reid stands for nothing. He's accomplished nothing. He leads nowhere. His expends the most energy staying to the right of center and making excuses for why he can't accomplish anything and then watching the clock so he can go home at 5 and get to bed early so he can get up and do it again tomorrow.

Reid neither enforces nor leads. Reid sits and complains or sits and shrugs his shoulders. And sits. He's useless.

Hey Paddlefoot! You can call me all the names you want but just HOW do you want Reid to LEAD? Twisting arms? Making deals? Promising crap that leads to MORE crap? I am not defending Reid. I never DID think he was effective but I certainly don't want a ballbuster.

HOW do you want Reid to LEAD?

We want someone who whips votes on issues, not someone who whines about not having the votes and tells us we just need to elect 3-5 more Dem Senators next time and then he'll really truly finally get something accomplished as majority leader. There are 60 Dems now, he shouldn't have much trouble getting 51 of them together on any issue.

"There have been plenty of Senate Majority Leaders in history who members feared and wouldn't dare cross. Reid isn't one of them."

Damn.

Harry Reid is the choice of a plurality of the Democratic senators. He was elected to be the majority leader because he leads the Democratic senators in the direction they want to be led. Liberals need to stop thinking that Harry Reid is the only one standing in the way of a liberal agenda. There are a bunch of senators that want a moderate agenda with bipartisan outreach. They don't want a liberal agenda. If liberals want a liberal agenda, they will need to pressure several Democratic senators to move left and stop wishing that Mr. Reid is the only thing holding them back.

"But I'm not very good at twisting arms."

Well, duh.

Isn't there anyone in the Senate with enough fire in the belly and enough of a following to kick Reid out? Maybe not, and more's the pity. Reid is a disaster, and has been since day one.

He's a total embarrassment not only to the Democrat, but to the whole country. "Oh, I'm not good at this so I'll just keep doing it anyway." Is he a Rethug plant?

With Reid at the helm the Democrats could have a 100 votes and the Rethugs would still call the shots.

Between Harry "Mr. Lupner" Reid and Barack "Post-partisanship" Obama, LBJ as both Majority Leader and President is looking pretty damn good, no? Man, would I love to see a picture of LBJ giving the "Treatment" to Bayh, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, McCaskill, etc. And some "harsh persuasion" on ol' Joementum would be particularly sweet.

Principled Peter is the weak link. Pelosi kicks ass; Obama is changing the world; Reid just wants everyone to play nice and get along. Way, way over his head. Wouldn't matter if affordable health care was a given, and the Earth wasn't melting, and the U.S. and the world weren't facing the most important transition (to a sustainable existence) in modern history - but it isn't, it is, and we are. Reid has got to go. Step aside, Mr. Reid. Show America you have the ability to do what's best for our country, and the world. It's time to pass the baton.

Is there any way the ghost of LBJ could visit Reid ala Jacob Marley in "A Christmas Carol" and give him some pointers in arm twisting? Because Reid needs some help.

There have been plenty of Senate Majority Leaders in history who members feared and wouldn't dare cross. Reid isn't one of them.

Really? I can think of one: Lyndon B. Johnson. But I think he was pretty sui generis. Did anybody fear Frist? He was a joke. So was Daschle. Trent Lott was perhaps a bit better, but I don't remember him being particularly effective. George Mitchell, Bob Dole, Mike Mansfield, and Howard Baker were all reasonably effective majority leaders, but I've never gotten the sense that any of them did so based on being hard ball-busters. Robert Byrd basically viewed his role in more or less the same way Reid does - as being a gentle shepherd of a bunch of cats. Bob Taft managed to get exactly one major piece of legislation through the Senate during his effective majority leadership in the 40s.

Who are these plenty? The role of Senate Majority leader is basically always like this. It's just very hard to get party discipline in the Senate. LBJ could do it. But LBJ was an extraordinarily remarkable politician.

Could you point to some of these plenty of other examples?

reid is a disaster. He needs to go.

Two things: first, Reid came to power as a minority leader, and it does not appear that he has adjusted to his new status as a majority leader; second, Reid demonstrates little understanding of the distinction between leading and managing.
In some ways, my two assesments both point to the same underlying problem.
For me the the difficulty is that when you combine the calls for bipartisanship with Reid's management style, you have a prescription for complete paralysis of the progressive agenda we sent these people to Washington to implement.

As soon as Al Franken gets sworn in he should be elected Majority Leader.

Watching the on air Fox heart attacks would be the least of my glee because apoplexy among the DINOs would be so much more rewarding. I relish the images of Lieberman, Baye, and Nelson flopping around in plain sight on the Stehenopolous show.

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