Harry Reid isn't running for re-election and is feeling just a little bit unleashed. A lot unleashed. So he's
taken to the opinion page of
The New York Times to point out that his successor in Senate leadership, Mitch McConnell, has pretty much sucked so far.
The situation started when Republicans took over the House in 2011, but it has picked up rapidly since they took control of the Senate earlier this year. The conclusion is unavoidable: Republican control of Congress means constant crisis.
In the seven months that Republicans have controlled the Senate, we’ve suffered from the expiration of critical national security tools, come within hours of partially shutting down the Department of Homeland Security and witnessed a complete shutdown of the Export-Import Bank, a previously uncontroversial agency that supports hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Routine business like confirming nominees is ignored.
While Republicans have kept virtually none of their promises about how they would run Congress, one promise they have kept is their vow to use essential appropriations bills to manufacture even more crises. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican Senate leader, laid out this strategy last year, saying that President Obama “needs to be challenged, and the best way to do that is through the funding process.”
Reid's larger point is to highlight the fact that—despite all of McConnell's insistence that there will not be a government shutdown on his watch—we're headed toward a government shutdown. That's happening because of McConnell's instigating his fellow Republicans to use the funding process to "challenge" President Obama. Or repeal Obamacare, or defund women's health, or whatever the extremist cause du jour happens to be.
It doesn't have to be that way, Reid reminds McConnell and whoever else might be reading the NYT opinion page. He doesn't have to lead his conference into this kamikaze government shutdown. He can actually lead, and he can also take Reid up on his offer to negotiate on the budget. House Speaker John Boehner has already learned that if he really wants to get something critical done, he has to do it with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's help. It's the same for McConnell. Reid's message: Give up the extremist, partisan maneuvering (which would be welcomed by embattled Republican incumbents running for re-election in swing states in 2016), give up the vendetta against Obama, and actually govern.
Not that Reid's entire missive to McConnell is meant to be helpful. Because it's also good to remind the Republicans, and the American people, what they've become. That's neatly handled when Reid just drops a mention of "Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner," into the mix.