Over the years, I have not been shy in my feelings about Senator Reid and the job he is doing to for Democrats in the Senate as Majority Leader.
Time and time again, he has sold out his own party while allowing Bill friggin Frist or Mitch friggin McConnell run circles around him. He couldn’t do anything as Minority Leader (funny how McConnell is quite able to be effective for his party as Minority Leader) so we needed to give him a majority. A majority was too thin and he couldn’t do enough so we needed to give him a bigger majority, which we did.
And since suddenly nothing can get done in Reid’s Senate without 60 votes, the huge gains made in November, coupled with the huge gains in 2006 got him pretty close to the "magic 60". And with the defection of Arlen Specter, coupled with the victory in Minnesota by Al Franken (no thanks to Reid for not standing behind his soon-to-be-Senator in pushing the narrative), here we are with pretty much 60 people in the Democratic Caucus.
So, what does Senator Reid give us now that he has his 60 votes?
But everyone should understand: the difference between 58, 59, 60 senators is just fairly illusionary, because we still have to work on a bipartisan basis with whatever we get done.
Now, couple this with , what Christy Hardin Smith so eloquently calls "complete and utter bullshit" when it comes to pushing through President Obama’s choice of Dawn Johnson for an Office of Legal Counsel position – only a position that she previously already held and was previously abused and made a mockery of by the Jay Bybee’s and Steven Bradbury’s of the world. Reid is simply rolling over on this (and some blame should also fall to other senior Senate Democrats as well), but after his prior actions when it comes to honoring anonymous holds placed by republican Senators (and hanging Chris Dodd out to dry on FISA), and his comments yesterday about closing Gitmo and "releasing terrorists into the United States", he has truly lost it.
He is ineffective in pushing the President’s programs. He is ineffective as a leader of his party in the Senate. He is ineffective in getting any movement on items that the House easily passed (and while it is tougher in the Senate, an ever growing majority to levels not seen in decades gives him little to no excuse). He repeats republican talking points. He is the biggest roadblock to so many things that progressives hold dear as he controls the Senate agenda.
He has failed miserably at his job, and unfortunately, with his abysmal approval ratings, stands a better chance of being defeated by a republican than by another Democrat in a primary. The only consolation there is that the Democrats are pretty much certain to gain a few more seats in 2010 and we can look forward to another Majority Leader that doesn’t suck quite as much as the current one.