Harry Reid–a Man for No Season

posted at 4:46 pm on December 8, 2009 by Howard Portnoy
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James Taranto leads today in BOTWT with an analysis of the most recent embarrassing statement on the floor of the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid. After repeating Reid’s ludicrous and incendiary claim that “Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era” to address the wrongs of slavery (which Taranto notes, correctly, should alienate Olympia Snowe “by likening her party to slavery defenders”), Taranto writes:

This . . . raises a question that has long puzzled us about Reid: How did such an unappealing man who says so many foolish things get so far in politics? He has been elected to Congress six times, and the Senate’s Democrats chose him as their leader. Maybe he has exceptional backroom skills, or comes across better in person than on television. And of course the polls show he is in trouble with the voters back in Nevada. Still, his success to this point seems something of a miracle–an inspiration to dour, foolish men everywhere.

Those polls Taranto refers to suggest that we may not have this nauseating, skeletal excuse for a human being to kick around that much longer. Reid very well might lose the Senate seat he’s held so long.

As to the question of Reid’s longevity in national politics? I say it’s his belt.

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