In Showdown With G.O.P., a Scrappy Reid Plays Hardball
By JEREMY W. PETERS, NYT
WASHINGTON — It was not enough for Senator Harry Reid to just dismiss Republican offers as “vexatious” or “kid’s stuff” or “one cockamamie, can’t-pass idea after another.” He called the White House and asked it to issue a veto threat, which it promptly did.
It was not enough for Mr. Reid, the majority leader, to accuse his counterpart in the House, Speaker John A. Boehner, of being dragged around by a tribe of rogue “banana Republicans.” He leaked a series of e-mails between their offices in an attempt to humiliate the speaker.
With Congress locked in an intractable budget dispute that kept the federal government shut down for a second day on Wednesday, Mr. Reid is not only acting as the public face of the no-compromise posture of Democrats on Capitol Hill, he is the power behind the scenes driving a hard-line strategy that the White House and Congressional Democrats are hoping will force Republicans to crack.
His tactics have been unapologetically aggressive, even when measured by the fast and loose rules of engagement in a political climate so bitterly polarized.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — It was not enough for Senator Harry Reid to just dismiss Republican offers as “vexatious” or “kid’s stuff” or “one cockamamie, can’t-pass idea after another.” He called the White House and asked it to issue a veto threat, which it promptly did.
It was not enough for Mr. Reid, the majority leader, to accuse his counterpart in the House, Speaker John A. Boehner, of being dragged around by a tribe of rogue “banana Republicans.” He leaked a series of e-mails between their offices in an attempt to humiliate the speaker.
With Congress locked in an intractable budget dispute that kept the federal government shut down for a second day on Wednesday, Mr. Reid is not only acting as the public face of the no-compromise posture of Democrats on Capitol Hill, he is the power behind the scenes driving a hard-line strategy that the White House and Congressional Democrats are hoping will force Republicans to crack.
His tactics have been unapologetically aggressive, even when measured by the fast and loose rules of engagement in a political climate so bitterly polarized.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
I enjoyed watching Senator Reid squirm around the reporter’s question on saving one child. His final 'answer' of "Why would we want to do that?" demonstrates the weakness of his argument. We should have listened to George Washington when he warned us about political parties.
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