For Reid, this is yet another brazen and tasteless partisan attack. As
majority leader, he has managed to sink the public image of the Senate
even lower than it would otherwise be. He contributes to bad feelings,
gridlock and the sense īŋŊ nay, the reality īŋŊ that everything is done for
political advantage. Reid is a crass man, the very personification of the
gaudy and kitschy Las Vegas Strip.
Still, he is not some backbencher, but the Senate majority leader. He is
the face of the Democratic Party in the Senate and the ally of President
Obama. Yet, not a single Democrat has had the spine to rebuke Reid. The
White House has been given the chance and explicitly ducked its duty.
Other members of the Senate have run for cover. They fear Reid and, if
truth be told, sort of like what heīŋŊs doing īŋŊ constantly needling Romney,
keeping him on the defensive about taxes and his insistence on releasing
only two years of his returns.
The politics of this squabble are delightful. But Reid has managed to draw
both his party and his president into the gutter with him. When Reid
accuses the Republicans of being overly partisan, he now lacks all
credibility. For a long time itīŋŊs been difficult to believe anything he
says. Now, itīŋŊs impossible.
As for Obama, he is tarnished by this episode. The fresh new face that
promised us all a different kind of politics is suddenly looking cheesy.
The soaring rhetoric that Obama used in his first campaign has come to
ground in the mud of Harry ReidīŋŊs latter-day McCarthyism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/harry-reids-gutter-politics/2012/08/06/b3546bfe-dfcf-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html
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"The people are sending a message, and elected officials would do well to
take heed: You aren't getting any more of our tax dollars until you can
show you're responsible and can be trusted with the money you have now."
- Debbie Dooley, state coordinator of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots