Harry Reid is from the state of Nevada, which is the penultimate state in America at mixing free-wheeling rights of individual expression (legalized gambling, legalized prostitution, other vices legalized and even encouraged in "sin city") with the authortarian tendencies of the "establishment" to consolidate power and run a security-intensive business - what tendencies also happen to parrallel the heart-and-soul of the Bush-Cheney administration's unwarranted surveillance of American citizens. So while Harry Reid is a "Liberal Democrat," he also represents a state with very authortarian, concentration-of-wealth-and-power tendencies.
THAT is exactly why Harry is such an ANEMIC Senate Majority leader - in the mold of Tom Daschle, Harry would much prefer to make a back office compromise, than get out there and SHOUT and FIGHT and drum up public support on any of 1,000 different issues - even in the face of serious Republican corruption, if not outright criminality. (CONVICTIONS of SENATOR Bob Ney, CONGRESSMAN Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, CONVICTION of Bush confidant Jack Abramoff and number one supporter Ken Lay, CONVICTION of PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE of BUSH SENIOR ADVISOR Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who was concurrently the Vice President's Chief of Staff; etc. etc. etc. ad naseum)
HARRY, taking after the SOFT SPOKEN, reticent, unwilling-to-call-a-pig-a-pig Tom Daschle WILL GET YOU THE SAME RESULTS he got - SCORN from right-wing and muddled-middle, and APATHY from your own voters - and a SWIFT EXIT at the hands of Karl Rove's Swift Boat mob!
For Christ's sake, Harry - WON'T YOU STAND UP FOR DEMOCRATIC, minority, and independent voters? WHY must the Democrat 'leadership' keep RAMMING the same old tired "RETREAT BEFORE WE FIGHT!" agenda down America's throats, even with Bush polling in 20s, Cheney polling in the teens, and the above list of Republican/White House CRIMES _already_ on the record?
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Another Sorry Ascension
[aka "Another corrupt, partisan Bush nominee to high office"!]
New York Times Editorial
Published: June 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/opinion/14thu2.html
It apparently wasn’t enough for the Bush administration to pack the Department of Justice with political operatives. The White House has now nominated one of the most meddlesome of those partisans, Hans von Spakovsky, to a powerful post on the Federal Election Commission.
This is the agency charged with making sure elections are fair — an especially ludicrous perch for Mr. Spakovsky. As a voting-rights appointee in the Justice Department, he promoted Republican initiatives to crimp the ballot power of minorities and the poor who typically favor Democrats.
In one of his party missions, Mr. Spakovsky overrode the recommendations of the department’s staff professionals and approved a regressive law in Georgia that required voters to provide photo identification. The law, a voter suppression tool worthy of the Jim Crow era, was later blocked by the courts. A former G.O.P. county chairman in Georgia, Mr. Spakovsky failed to recuse himself from such an obvious conflict of interest. He also pushed for department approval of Tom DeLay’s Texas gerrymandering plan — the plan that the Supreme Court ruled violated the Voting Rights Act.
Feverish for the Republican edge, Mr. Spakovsky drove career lawyers from the Justice department and constantly parroted the (Karl) Rovian line that voter fraud is rampant, though studies have found otherwise.
Uncertain that even a Republican-controlled Senate would approve Mr. Spakovsky’s nomination to the F.E.C., President Bush gave him a recess appointment to the commission last year. The new Democratic-controlled Senate now has the opportunity to strike a blow against electoral skullduggery with a blunt rejection of Mr. Spakovsky’s nomination for a full six-year term.
The realpolitik problem with that is that the two-party machines traditionally stack the F.E.C. with loyal mediocrities and avoid confronting each other’s bad apples. Making it worse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has nominated a hometown buddy and party ally to the commission and isn’t eager to jeopardize his own choice. But that’s no reason to look the other way when it comes to Mr. Spakovsky’s obvious unfitness for the job.
Democrats should make clear to the White House — and to Mr. Reid — that the F.E.C. is too important to be left in the hands of political hacks or to be sacrificed for the sake of a political deal.
