It's too bad that a great man and a swell fellow like Tom Daschle got beat, especially by a pious nitwit like John Thune. (I understand that Daschle and his wife bought some property in Washington, D.C. which apparently was a sign that they no longer had "South Dakota values.")
So now Harry Reid is Senate Minority Leader? I don't know much about him, but he doesn't strike me as being what we really need, which is a wartime consigliore. We need people who will proudly and emphatically vote "no" on people like Porter Goss, and raise holy hell if Bush tries to "privatize" Social Security. (Want to guess how much investment bankers would make on such a scheme?)
We need a slick parliamentary schemer (which Reid may prove to be), someone who can sow confusion and discord in the ranks of our opponents, sometimes without leaving fingerprints, and do it in such a way that Republicans in Congress finally have to take responsibility for themselves. When it comes time to be "obstructionist," then dammit obstruct, and don't be apologetic about it either. Don't just vote no on moving Social Security deficits off-budget, as they are planning to do, vote "hell no."