People Are Noticing Harry Reid Is Weird

It puts the lotion on its skin.

Michael Warren, writing in The Weekly Standard:

At the Ritz-Carlton, Reid read his own words in print and made a snap decision. The next day, at a noon press conference in the Capitol, he dropped the bomb. The jobs bill, including the carefully crafted tax deal, was being scrapped, he told reporters. Reid would instead introduce a new “pared-back” bill, without the tax proposals that had enraged the left. This was the first time Baucus had heard his hard-fought agreement was being thrown away. To the finance committee senators and staff, it was weeks of hard work down the drain. To Reid, it was business as usual.

Reid is odd, temperamental, mercurial, obstinate, and rude. He says things that “make you cringe,” as one senator put it. Once, while waiting for President Obama outside the Oval Office, Reid greeted a tall female West Wing staffer by telling her she was his “favorite big woman,” while Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was his “favorite small woman.” Reid quickly “clarified,” telling her he only meant that she was his favorite big woman “at the White House.”

In the Reid regime, the Senate operates more or less at his whim. Members are frequently caught off guard when he decides to bring a bill up for debate. Reid will promise to allow a senator to present an important amendment only to change course at the last minute and claim he never made the promise at all.

(Emphasis mine.) I noticed this a long time ago. He reminds me of a kid who lived nearby when I was six. He had the most wonderful toys, but his greatest delight was in not letting you play with them. Once I wanted to drive his pedal car. He ran over and sat in it, beaming. Then he drove around in circles. I was hurt and said something about not sharing. He loved it. I walked toward a ball on his driveway. He jumped out of the car, ran over, and grabbed the ball, stepping back, cradling it--all the while with that same inward-directed Harry Reid smile.

Reid lacks empathy. That explains his habit of saying asinine things: You're my favorite big woman. Obama is a light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect. Romney hasn't paid taxes in ten years. Gillibrand is the hottest senator. Hurricane Katrina was nothing compared to Sandy. When you objectify people like that, they don't have feelings of their own, so you can't hurt them. You couldn't hurt a rock either, for example.

DrewM noticed the weirdness a few years ago. Reid had called Clarence Thomas an embarrassment, and he had referred to Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd as the greatest living Americans:

Asked to name "a greatest living American" most of us would name a person who is objectively "living" and an "American", the greatness being a bit more open to interpretation. Harry on the other hand goes with two guys who are dead...Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd.

Call me crazy but I don't think a guy who got liquored up and killed a woman or a man who rose up the ranks of the Klu Klux Klan should be on anyone's list of "greatest American", living or dead.

Just remember though...Sharron Angle is an idiot who can't be let near the Senate. And according the Mensa member Harry Reid, Clarence Thomas is "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court".

Drew also pointed out Reid may have enriched himself with insider information about green energy legislation.

You get a sense that Harry Reid thinks he can say or do whatever he wants because he's just that good and nothing else matters. The weird statements, the I-get-to-do-what-I-want capriciousness, and the reckless intransigence? Warren is right: Reid is a small-minded, odd man. He uses his power only to confound others and to please himself. He's that spoiled brat I knew when I was a kid.

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posted by rdbrewer at 02:35 PM

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