Harry Reid & The Repeating Collapse

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Harry Reid screwed up again. This time it was, once again, allowing the minority party in the Senate to have a free hand to gum up the works.

Reid refused to reform filibuster rules in the Senate in any meaningful way, because the election season’s over, his position is secure and screw you.

It’s not as if people are asking for the filibuster to die completely, but that senators simply have to show up and actually do the deed.

If you really oppose legislation or other Senate business so badly, then have the guts to stand up and do it.

My own Senator, Barbara Mikulski, put it well: “If you want to filibuster in the Senate, you should be on floor making your case. Show up or shut up.”

(I’m biased, but I’m pretty sure a Majority Leader Mikulski wouldn’t be this disappointing on such a consistent basis)

Reid, as usual, gave the cowards in the body a way out.

And the argument that Republicans would use this power doesn’t wash. That’s the point. If, as I noted on Twitter today, Sen. Elizabeth Warren opposed the nomination of Liz Cheney to Secretary of State under President Marco Rubio, I think she should have to defend it on the floor. Under the Reid Rules, a cowardly senator from Nevada (or some other state) can simply obstruct senate business without putting his or her name to it.

The fig leaf Reid put out to cover his rear on this capitulation basically argues that the GOP will go against type and be the good guys.

Not even Harry Reid is naïve enough to believe that. Fooled, again. But that’s what Senator Reid always does.

Sure, he’s better than Sharron Angle would have been in the same seat. But on days like today? Just barely.