Another masterstroke from the insider's insider

Didja hear the one about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? He agreed that Congress will look the other way while the administration condones torture. In return, the Republicans agreed to let the Democrats continue to fund the Iraq war.

That Harry. Is he the undisputed master of the sophisticated backroom deal or what?

TPM explains, and Desert Beacon elaborates in the course of popping Harry's Deck Bass cherry.

It's no surprise, sadly tragically, that Harry would bargain away Mukasey's nomination in exchange for getting a Defense appropriations bill passed in the misguided belief that it would provide the Democrats with political cover — "Lookie at us! We voted for some military funding already! We love the troops just as much as the president does!" etc.

It is of course only the latest in an agonizingly long line of decisions based on the same cynical and shameless thinking that prompted Reid, Clinton, Edwards, Kerry and far too many other Senate Democrats to give Bush the Iraq blank check in 2002 in the first place: If Democrats voted for war, the Republicans would quit calling them weak on defense and that pesky Iraq issue cold be taken "off the table" so the Democrats could rally Americans around a bold agenda of whatever half-assed half-measure the Democrats were pretending to tout as a bold agenda at the time (prescription drugs for geezers under Medicare, if memory serves).

To this day, Harry and his colleagues must be wondering why their brilliant strategy didn't work out as planned.

Meantime, because a reminder is warranted occasionally and it seems to fit here and now ... As recently as this year, Reid attempted to rationalize his 2002 vote to let Bush start a war by pointing to the discredited presentation Colin Powell made to the United Nations — which Powell delivered, of course, in 2003.

Reid is often referred to in media, especially local media, as some hot-shot backroom wheeler dealer who is always thinking three moves ahead in the most sophisticated Machiavellian fashion. We freely stipulate — always have — that trying to discern what specific piece of legislative arcana might be motivating Reid at any given time is, if not a universally fruitless endeavor, then one that is typically far, far above the Gleaner's pay grade.

But as the Democratic Congress continues to flounder pointlessly in aim of ... yeah, who fucking knows? ... there seems to be more and more evidence that Reid's celebrated talent for congressional maneuvering does not extend much beyond advancing his own professional prospects. And even in that category, he's probably peaked.

Comments

"POP" goes his cherry.