Who is Harry Reid?
Other than the Minority Leader in the Senate, the man is one our best hopes in the fight against the Right Wing Tyranny. I met Harry Reid at a NDN event and came away not only impressed with this man, but an ardent supporter. During his short time as minority leader, there have been some things that he has done that I suspect have made some new fans here.
If you'd like to learn more about him, this is a good place to start. Meanwhile, we have some work to do in watching the repugs attempts to "Daschle" him.
What follows are links to the announced
G.O.P tactics of labeling him as an obstructionist and any relevant media complicity in framing him as such.
Starting with his home state of Nevada, Reno's own KOH joined the fray by dutifully promoting on the word off the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, Earlene Forsythe, that
"Senator Reid needs to know that there are many Nevadans who do see his activities as obstructionist..."
...when it comes to his efforts to protect Social Security from the vultures of Wall Street.
Next up, we find that the loyal poodle John Gibson over at Faux has speculated that the "ghost of Daschle lingers on in the form of Harry Reid"
Now, I've never heard of this little punk Benjamin Shapiro, but he clearly got the memo to start pushing the obstructionist charge.
And you just know the Blimp of Bloviation is on the charge:
I remember the partisanship which Reagan was president, which is the era these guys are talking about. Tom Foley is no different than Pelosi today, no different than Howard Dean today, no different than Harry Reid, no different than Daschle. You know, Daschle replaced George Mitchell. George Mitchell was the most partisan man in Washington when he was there. He was the Senate leader of the Democrats. He got away with it because he was so soft-spoken. Where do you think Daschle learn that?
Not to be outdone by his cadre of brown-shirts, our favorite doughboy:
In the exclusive interview, Rove, who is a lightning rod for Democratic criticism, said he expects Democrats to oppose the president's agenda, because that's "the way Washington works." He also said the president will continue to reach across party lines to encourage Democrats to "sort of leave politics behind at a certain point."
He specifically referred to Sen. Harry Reid, the new Senate minority leader, who is already winning from conservatives the title "obstructionist" given to his predecessor, Sen. Tom Daschle, who lost re-election this year. Rove said Reid is a "nice fellow" but the president is not going to lose focus or take it personally when Reid objects to the president's agenda.
The thing to look for will be when Fox or others trot out Reid pleading guilty as an obstructionist to Brit Hume back in 2001.
Fortunately, some are seeing the sleaze for what it is. Jonathan Chait writing for the Cincinati Post Online tells us...
The need for the campaign against Reid is clear enough. Unlike the icy Hillary Rodham Clinton or the hotheaded Howard Dean, Harry Reid does not easily lend himself to hostile caricature. He is anti-abortion and anti-gun control. As the New York Times reported, Reid "is appearing more often on national television, where strategists in both parties say he comes off as reasonable and evenhanded."
Republicans carried out a nearly identical operation to drive up antagonism against Tom Daschle, the previous Democratic Senate leader, who also was inconveniently mild-mannered. Republicans sent out talking points, and in short order conservatives everywhere found themselves deeply vexed by the previously inoffensive, low-profile South Dakota senator. Rush Limbaugh, taking the demonization campaign a tad too literally, began calling Daschle "El Diablo." Perhaps now, with the devil himself already having been used, Limbaugh is thumbing through "Paradise Lost" looking for lesser satanic figures after which to name Reid. (My money's on "Beelzebub.")
But were that all that we had to look out for.
This is not the tack that they will use to discredit Harry. Just like Brit Hume's tremendous whopper misrepresenting FDR's words about what Social Security was to transition into, they will start to misrepresent that Reid supported privatization and is (you can hear it a mile away...) "flip-flopping" just like a typical Dem.
Please keep a look out for the smears that are coming to a newspaper/news show/net'zine near you. Post them up and get the LTEs rolling!!
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