Bozell Column: Nearly Invisible Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid finally appeared in a debate on October 14 in Las Vegas with his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. The appearance might come as a surprise to consumers of the national media. While Angle has been pounded relentlessly by national media outlets as being both dangerously radical and ridiculous, Reid has been left alone, and untouched.
But what about Harry? He’s the Majority Leader after all. Is he, like so many of his colleagues, simply afraid to talk about his legislative “accomplishments”? Nobody’s wondered why he hasn’t been making the rounds of interviews on national television. While reporters rush to report the latest “wacky” quote from Angle, the networks haven’t lifted a finger to cover Reid’s cascade of rhetorical stumbles and outrages, especially since Angle won the GOP primary.
We won’t count Reid’s remarks last year comparing opponents of health reform to supporters of slavery, or his describing those opponents as “evilmongers,” which he delighted in repeating and telling reporters he’d coined a new word.
There’s a list of fresh gaffes, and it just keeps growing.
In the last three months, Reid embarrassed Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons by calling him “my pet.” He said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is the “hottest senator,” enraging feminists. He said "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.” Just last week, a reporter asked him to nominate his “greatest living American,” and the supposedly smarter candidate cited the deceased senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd.
On Sunday, he waxed Bidenesque as he compared Obama to the Chilean miners trapped underground. When Obama replaced Bush, Reid said, he found himself in a "hole so deep that he couldn't see the outside world.” It “was like the Chilean miners, but he, being the man he is, rolled up his sleeves and said 'I am going to get us out of this hole.'" Oh.
None of these groaners were the subject of breathless reports on television.
For Nevada voters, the debate unequivocally exposed that it was Reid who was the candidate that came unprepared for prime time. But on the three networks, it was a different story. While they tried to acknowledge weakly that Reid didn’t win, only Jonathan Karl on ABC played a clip of a confused Reid at the podium, fumbling for his notes: "Okay. Got to find my little notes here...Okay. A lot of paper here." Karl was also the only network correspondent who, after Reid denied that he grew rich in office, featured the Democrat’s ridiculous line, "I've been on a fixed income since I went to Washington." Karl noted Reid makes $193,400 as majority leader. None of the networks used Angle’s line that Reid most un-politically lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC. Some fixed income.
But the worst part of the debate that the network Angle-bashers ignored concerned Reid’s biggest and most outspoken mistake: his declaration in April of 2007 that the Iraq war was lost. The debate moderator, Mitch Fox, quoted his remarks precisely: “You were quoted as saying the following: 'The war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence.' Do you believe that your statements demoralized the troops and were inaccurate as judged by the success of the troop surge?"
Reid simply lied in response. He tried to suggest he was merely restating the thesis of Gen. David Petraeus: “He said, and I said, the war can only be won militarily, economically and diplomatically.” Reid said this, without an ounce of shame, right after the moderator had just quoted him saying “The war is lost.”
But then Reid dug an even deeper trench of untruth. "After I made my statement, and Gen. Petraeus made his statement, we did the surge then, not later. And it was the right thing to do."
So now Reid is taking credit for the surge? Again, the moderator had just told the voters of Nevada that Reid declared “the surge is not accomplishing anything.” Reid didn’t care about the truth of what he said. He was just recklessly, shamelessly inventing an alternative universe. History, truth, facts – damn them all. Reid now says “the surge worked,” and that somehow, in spite of his white-flag remarks, he was supportive of the mission and the troops.
How can the “truth” detectors in TV news skip over Reid’s fabrications of his own record? They can’t, of course unless they’re shamelessly partisan, and don’t care if politicians tell the truth or invent fiction.
Back in 2007, NBC reporter Bob Faw insisted Reid was merely “saying out loud what many say privately about Iraq.” What “many say privately” (read: inside the national media) turned out to be wrong and unwise. So the reporters are not just covering for Reid. They’re covering for themselves.
- Brent Bozell's blog
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Comments
Reid's allegedly lucrative career as lawyer
Submitted by Jack Coleman on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:09am.
Had Angle made the same claim, NY Times would have already run front-page expose challenging her
And all those big purses from his prizefighting career
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:18am.
Good thing he wasn't managed by Don King or he'd be in the poorhouse now
/s
Dingy Harry is, IMO, just
Submitted by motherbelt on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:18am.
Dingy Harry is, IMO, just another guy who couldn't make it in the private sector and so decided to go into "public (government) service"
Chilean miners?
Submitted by motherbelt on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:17am.
I guess Obama is ever better than the Chilean miners. After all, they sat and waited for someone to rescue them.
Obama, no doubt, would have rolled up his sleeves and clawed his own way up to the surface. With every other miner attached to him by rope, pulling them ALL up.
Reid is a master of revisionist history. When he got caught showing his a$$ with that stupid letter against Rush Limbaugh, which Rush converted into a $400,000 donation to soldiers' families, Reid went to the well and bragged about it like he had been part of it all along "always glad to help out our soldiers" or some such nonsense.
The man is an embarrassment. A positively shameless embarrassment.
I just read an article
Submitted by ThisnThat on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:21am.
that says up to 75 house seats may change to Republican in 2 weeks. This is Step #1 -- removal of the worst, most dangerous Congress in our lifetime.
Step #2 starts on Nov 3 -- reversal of obama's disasterous influence, followed by removal of obama himself in 2012.
In parallel, Step #3 is to fully neutralize the lying bastards in the MSM -- to expose them for what they really are, and to make sure they can't spread any more lies in the future. Fortunately, their damage is limited this year because they are rapidly becoming irrevelent. But it will be nice to extract revenge for all their previous deceit.
__________
“Didn't win the Medal of Honor? Didn't even serve? Then lie about it. We'll support you." — 9th Circuit Court
Is there a Doonesbury character
Submitted by spepper on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:58am.
Is there a Doonesbury character for Harry Reid, the Invisible One? I suppose not.....remember Trudeau used the "invisible voice" to portray George H W Bush? I'm sure it wouldn't fit Trudeau's "mold" to use it on Reid.......
Doonesbury is still in
Submitted by Beukeboom on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 12:04pm.
Doonesbury is still in print? ;-)
Anyone who pays attantion can see
Submitted by c5then on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 8:58am.
That most of the MSM are shameless partisan activists no different from Harry Reid and the other politicians hwo say things based on what they think the audience wants to hear and then deny it later if it turns out to be inconvenient.
The MSM do the same thing in their "coverage" of various issues and stories and are obviously trying to affect the outcome of the elections.
It worked in 2008, but I think that alot more people are now aware of the problem and are ignoring the partisan media and doing their own homework.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
The greatest trick the devil
Submitted by fitzfong on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 9:11am.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." -George Best
His second greatest trick was
Submitted by Beukeboom on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 12:03pm.
His second greatest trick was getting Obama elected POTUS.
I borrowed that quote from
Submitted by fitzfong on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 1:41pm.
I borrowed that quote from Kaiser Soze in "The Usual Suspects"...it pretty much sums up Harry Reid's approach to this election...hide in a bunker like the coward he is, use his "labor" goons and his media stenographers to attack Sharron Angle relentlessly and hope that voters forget he exists.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." -George Best
Why do libs like Harry assume
Submitted by HockeyKid on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 9:34am.
Why do libs like Harry assume that no one can see through their BS? His claim that he made his money as an attorney is pure and simple BS. Here's a timeline:
1939 - born
1957 - finished HS
1961 - finished college
1966 - first political win & start of endless career in poltics
Between 1961 and 1966, he did 3 things: got his JD at GWU Law in DC, worked (in some capacity) at the Capitol Police, and was the City Attorney in Searchlight, NV. If he amassed a fortune as an attorney in that time, it must have been because he was on the take as City Attorney, a notoriously low-paying job in the ranks of the legal profession.
It's going to be refreshing to see him leave Washington for good. (In every sense of the word)
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
I would call Harry Reid a
Submitted by Beukeboom on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 12:02pm.
I would call Harry Reid a weasel but I have too much respect for Bobby Heenan.
A thought just occurred to me...with so many liberal Dems about to be voted out of office I wonder how many of 'em will end up become regular or semi-regular political analysts on MSNBC/CNN/HLN/ABC/CBS/NBC? And how soon after the elections?
OMG
Submitted by ripper58 on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 4:00pm.
can there be a lower form of life than Dingy Harry???? Lies through his teeth and expects everyone to believe him!! Has he no shame ? No morales? No ethics ??????
E545F564-6263-8914-13EE-60E5AFBA07B5 1.03.01
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