Ed Morrissey:
Consider this karma avoidance by the soon-to-be-ex-Senate Majority Leader, but Harry Reid’s new act won’t fool anyone, least of all Mitch McConnell. Reid has run the US Senate for the past eight years like a dictatorship, steadily eroding minority privileges to the point where Republicans couldn’t offer amendments or put up any significant resistance to Barack Obama’s radical appointments, unless Democrats forced Reid’s hand on either score. After watching his party lay a historic egg in the midterms — the size of which is still not yet fully known — Reid tried spinning the results as a mandate for the kind of compromise that he’s blocked ever since winning control of the upper chamber in 2006:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has reached out to his presumed successor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying that he hoped they could work together “to get things done” in Washington.
In a statement, according to Mediaite, Reid said, “I’d like to congratulate Senator McConnell, who will be the new Senate Majority Leader. The message from voters is clear: They want us to work together. I look forward to working with Senator McConnell to get things done for the middle class.”
Er … sure it was. The actual message was entirely a repudiation of the shove-it-down-your-throat approach and demagoguery exemplified by Reid’s leadership and Barack Obama’s attitude. The 2010 midterms sent that same signal, but Reid ignored it and amplified his dictatorial approach in the aftermath of a narrow 2012 win. He’s still not getting the message — or more likely, is willfully ignoring it in order to benefit himself.
Evidence of that has already been provided by Reid and his team. Despite coughing up the worst midterm results in a generation, Reid wants to continue at the helm of Senate Democrats:
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) does not have any second thoughts about staying on as the Senate Democratic leader after the drubbing his party took on election night.
Spokesman Adam Jentleson vowed that Reid will lead his party’s remaining members in the chamber next year.
“Senator Reid will run for minority leader,” he said Tuesday.
Not so fast, said Chuck Todd last night. While his colleagues in the Senate have been either quiet or publicly supportive, the extent of this collapse will almost certainly mean that Reid will be gone from caucus leadership in January:
Poor Harry won’t be able to pad his net worth at our expense any longer.
Now he wants us to all get along. What the hell was he doing for the last 6 years, just what the hell he damned well pleased. He is a very hateful man…I hope the people in Vegas finally smarten up and vote the rat out…
Reid is like the machine gunner that has been mowing down soldiers that is finally overrun and overwhelmed and throws up his hands in surrender. The question is now, what are we going to do with all these bayonets?
I’m inclined to say; to hell with what Hateful Harry wants.
Hes had his chance to seek “compromise” for six years, and took the complete opposite direction, even changing the rules to ensure that the Republican minority could not even put forward any debate or amendment’s in representation of their constituents. Democrats have been pulling this crap for decades and the damn namby pamby establishment RINOs keep letting them get away with it. It is time the party leadership grow some balls.
It’s also time to start the investigations.