Might as well document our predictions.
Just saw Halperin and Heilman on Morning Joe discussing their gossip column. One guess what subject took up the most time on the segment.
If you didn’t say the Clenis, you are wrong.
by John Cole| 85 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Might as well document our predictions.
Just saw Halperin and Heilman on Morning Joe discussing their gossip column. One guess what subject took up the most time on the segment.
If you didn’t say the Clenis, you are wrong.
Comments are closed.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I predict I will laugh myself to death at the spectacle of men who regularly blow Rush Limbaugh calling Reid a racist.
Just kidding. I predict a hasty retreat when another GOPer gets caught hiking the Appalachian Trail.
K. Grant
Blah. Who cares, the Pack lost.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I predict that this will be good news for conservatives, whatever happens.
donovong
I hereby officially predict that I will never, ever give a shit what Mark Hackerin writes in a book, at any time whatsoever.
Also.
J.
More interesting: Schumer or Durbin?
valdivia
I predict that no matter what the Village will not even mention the fact that Palin could not tell the difference between the Koreas, what the Fed did, or that she thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.
Brick Oven Bill
This will be another Glenn Beck scalp. The reason Harry’s ‘dialect’ comment is so dangerous is that one of Glenn’s favorite clips is Barack speaking in dialect to the SEIU stating that he talks to Andy Stern before endorsing any policy decision.
Glenn Beck is thus very powerful. Harry Reid is the number one person in the United States Senate, and a very nice trophy.
Brian J
I sadly haven’t been here much over the last few days, so perhaps I missed it. Has anyone talked about the fact that Bill Clinton supposedly said to Ted Kennedy that a couple of years ago, Obama would have been getting them coffee? If not, why not? The first I heard of it was from Mark Kleiman last night. His take seems to be best:
Comrade Jake
I think he’s likely toast in NV, but I don’t see him stepping down as majority leader over this. He knows where too many of the bodies are buried.
Comrade Jake
@Brian J:
Right. Which would seem to be a pretty fucking good reason not to talk about it, no?
debbie
The real joke is that Republicans had no problems with remarks about uppityness or with e-mail depictions of witch doctors.
But the prize goes to this statement from a Republican lobbyist in NYT this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/us/politics/11reid.html?th&emc=thhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/us/politics/11reid.html?th&emc=th
Davis X. Machina
I’ve been saying for years that on the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph “Killed by a Story Arc”.
I have changed my mind. On the tombstone of the Republic will be the epitaph “Both Sides Did It”.
Robin G.
I predict that approximately 15+ old rich white men in the Senate will reach for the smelling salts while calling for Reid’s resignation. Then they will go home and run for reelection on the basis of stopping “welfare recipients” from getting health care and thus leeching off Main Street Americans. Then they will make a pass at their illegally-immigrated Latina nanny, pop an oxy and wash it down with a martini, and fall asleep in bed listening to Bill O’Reilly calling them heroes.
Just a guess.
Ash Can
Harry Reid has done some dumb things as Senate majority “leader,” but if he steps down because of this bullshit, it’ll be the dumbest thing yet.
Napoleon
This story just wants to make me scream since it is such a non-story. George Will had it exactly right (as reported by the HuffPo). This story and the fact that you have idiots like Maureen Dowd writing at one of the most valuable pieces of opinion real estate over the weekend that she needs a daddy figure as President (does anyone not think that she must have some serious sexual issues?) just has sent me into despair this Monday morning (and it did not help reading the new Fallows piece last night).
Our country is so screwed.
Brian J
@Comrade Jake:
Wouldn’t it be irresponsible for those guys not to speculate?
K. Grant
@Robin G.: This.
Brian J
@Napoleon:
If it makes you feel any better, I can’t think of anyone my age who cares what Maureen Dowd thinks. That is, if they even can tell you who she is.
In other words, in twenty years, the people who really give a shit about her will be dead or almost dead. There’s that, at least.
Morbo
@Napoleon: I could not help but think of Dowd while watching Chris Rock last night.
Demo Woman
The comparison of Lott to Reid is ludicrous unless somehow you assume that one who supports a white supremacist is the same as one who supports a black candidate.
Mark
Slightly OT, but can someone explain to me why Harry Reid is so disliked, particularly by Democrats and Nevadans?
So few of the senators have made much of an impression on me. Mark Pryor was in Religulous and he comes off as a complete fool, so I could understand not liking him. Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson decided to take the spotlight over the last six months so that they could express incomprehensible views. I hate them. I still don’t trust Kirsten Gillibrand. I could see hating her.
But Reid? It’s like telling me you hate Herb Kohl or Patty Murray or Barbara Mikulski or Carl Levin – there’s no obvious reason.
Comrade Jake
@Mark:
His stances on women’s reproductive rights and Yucca Mountain seem pretty obvious to me.
Keith G
@Napoleon: Welcome to the fold. Once you accept the darkness, you can laugh again.
@Robin G.: I will be quoting you (to my wingnut brother) today.
Why would the Repugs want an already seriously wounded Reid to step aside? If he is as far gone as CW says, Steele should be helping him stay in place.
Comrade javafascist
Oh please, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and conservatives everywhere, don’t throw us in the brier patch with Harry Reid!
Third Eye Open
If we are hyperbolizing and pontificatin’ then I want the line on when the DFH split from the Blue Dogs, followed by ten years of political trench war-fare, before the adults finally step in to save us…thats going to happen, right? Anyone?
Ash Can
@Mark:
Well, there was his announcement right after Obama was elected that he and his Senate were not going to rubber-stamp whatever Obama wanted to pass — after he had spent the previous two years as majority leader rubber-stamping whatever Bush wanted to pass.
So nice to have you on our side, Harry.
Pasquinade
Y’all should stop the handwringing over Reid, and join in the fun at HuffPo.
Steve Schmidt: Palin Believed Candidacy ‘God’s Plan’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10/steve-schmidt-palin-belie_n_417977.html
“God has always been too busy determining the outcomes of football games…”
John PM
@ BrianJ #8
Well, of course we have to talk about anything Clinton might have said. Clearly you are unaware of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which state that anything that anyone claims that Bill Clinton said is not hearsay.
Max
Joey S was yanking it to this quote on Twitter last night, so its no surprise that he focuses on that.
He is THE most passive aggressive person on Twitter and will never pass on a chance to make false equivalencies.
jeffreyw
Tempest in a teapot. Gale in a swale. Rainstorm in a sink.
In other news, I am at a loss what to have for dinner today. The whole world wonders.
Michael D.
And, while you’re waiting for Harry Reid to die, here’s some interesting reading. Ted Olsen on why he is doing what he is persuing the marriage case in California:
Exactly right. [my emphasis]
Bad Horse's Filly
My favorite part of this is when the talking heads repeat President Obama’s quote: “As far as I’m concerned the book is closed.” I’m pretty sure they don’t get the dig.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Mark:
Well, from the Republican side, it’s because they’ve descended into pure tribalism, and Harry, along with Pelosi, is one of the leaders of The Other Tribe and therefore must be destroyed. If you queried 100 wingnuts as to exactly why they despise Reid and Pelosi, you’d be lucky to get 5 coherent responses.
JenJen
The exchange between Scarborough and Lawrence O’Donnell was quite testy. It’s clear that Larry O’D thinks Halperin is a gossiping harpy-douche.
Nick
@Brian J: I didn’t take it as racial either. His point was this guy was young and inexperienced.
Rathskeller
@Demo Woman gets the prize for best summary of the non-controversy.
Col. Klink
I wouldn’t bet against Reid just yet.
1.) The GOP in Nevada makes Vegas loan sharks look honest.
2.) It’s a weak field out there in the desert.
3.) Once healthcare gets passed Reid will have a major trophy to go home with.
4.) It’s still a very long time between now and election day.
5.) Reid is so boring he’s not a punch story. Unlike Clenis.
6.) Obama will campaign for Reid in Nevada.
7.) Whoever the GOP come up with is bound to be a Reichwing douche-bag from Clark County who survived the Teabag challenge.
Michael D.
Regarding this:
When I read that, my first and only thought, until I heard others whining about it, was that Clinton was saying, “A few years ago, this person would have been working at Starbucks.”
Shalimar
@Mark: Reid is majority leader, and he doesn’t seem even remotely capable of making deals to get other Dem senators on board for key votes. Most of us understand that it’s like herding cats, but we still don’t expect the cats to intentionally shit all over him so often without ever facing repercussions for their actions.
scav
I’m getting a wee little twisted bit of giggle out of watching Blago jumping up and down in the corner yelling Look at ME! Look at ME! I swear, that man will soon be peeing on his hairpiece and eating it on live TV for attention.
and jesus, he’s already “apologized” and dug himself in deeper in another direction. Maybe he’d do for MoDo. MoDoBlagO.
Max
@Michael D.: Why would he be working at Starbucks? He’s an attorney who is wicked smart.
JenJen
I was also annoyed that Halperin and Heilemann claim to have gotten “the scoop” on why Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama during the primaries. Dan Balz says he spent a year hunting down that story, but that Senator Kennedy’s staff is extremely protective and tight-lipped, and he admitted to having failed when his own (superior) 2008 campaign book, “The Battle For America” (written with Haynes Johnson) came out.
I’m sorry, but I find it impossible to believe that a credible source within the Kennedy Camp flapped their gums to the likes of Mark Halperin.
GReynoldsCT00
@jeffreyw:
and I’m sure a mouth-watering photo will turn up in a thread somewhere in the vicinity of lunchtime… :)
Nick
@Mark: As for Democrats, the impression is he’s been paltry as a Senate leader, but the Senate is not a body that can lead well.
Still, I think his numbers would still be in the toilet even if he was LBJ.
Ash Can
@Michael D.: Ever since I saw Ted Olsen in action during the 2000 general election clusterfuck, I’ve felt that if more Republicans were like him this world would be a much better place.
Keith G
@Michael D.: Re: Clinton. The thing that gets me about this is not the that comment may be racist, but that the “smartest political thinker of a generation” could not see the issue in saying that a young black man would be serving “us” coffee (or, say, a mint julep).
The moment I became aware the the quote, I felt the wording was very problematic.
Was he that unhinged by then, or is this a fiction?
jeffreyw
@GReynoldsCT00: dunno, casting about for inspiration still
arguingwithsignposts
@Robin G.:
That comment is so full of win (in a tragicomic sorta way). You should write professionally.
geg6
@Mark:
For me, it would be the moment Reid came out and said how much he loved Lieberman and would happily give him a chairmanship that rightfully should have gone to, I dunno, maybe an actual Democrat?
@scav:
Already happening. He’s gonna be on the Celebrity Apprentice. The Donald should have some fun with him, I’m sure. They can compare bad hair.
Keith G
BTW Greg Sargent has a good round up of related stories.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/the-morning-plum-46/
cmorenc
@Shalimar @Mark
LBJ, as majority leader, could do two things very, very well:
a) Find worthwhile positive incentives to get Senators on-board legislation they felt reluctant or downright distasteful toward, without having to eviscerate the legislation as the price of getting their vote;
b) LBJ knew how to eviscerate Senators from his own party who obstructed important legislation.
…and, you didn’t shit all over LBJ and get away with it. LBJ was the toughest hombre east or west of the Pecos.
John
Er…didn’t he just pass health care reform with Democratic votes? I don’t understand what people think some other leader could have done that Reid hasn’t done
When on earth did that happen? If you read the actually stories at the time, it was blatantly obvious that Reid wanted to take away Lieberman’s chairmanship, and Obama wouldn’t let him. That was on Obama, not Reid.
John
BTW, what, exactly, were the grand legislative achievements of LBJ as majority leader? The two civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960 were virtually worthless.
JenJen
Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller is live! Oh, happy day. On a day that every DC tongue is wagging about Harry Reid and Bill Clinton, their first lead story is about Carlos Allen, the 3rd White House state dinner crasher.
This site is gonna suck, but we already knew that.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Comrade jake:
Oh, come on now… we all know it would be IRRESPONSIBLE to NOT speculate…
What decade are you living in?
The Republic of Stupidity
@JenJen
This site just isn’t going to suck… it’s going to redefine ‘suckage’ in new and exciting ways. I predict Carlson is going to take ‘suckage’ to places inconceivable just a few short weeks before… we might even reach a point of ‘absolute suckage’ on this one…
JenJen
@The Republic of Stupidity: Peak Suckage. The Suckularity Is Near!!
I mean, his first op/ed is by Breitbart, ferchrissakes.
The Republic of Stupidity
@JenJen:
Carlson… AND Bretibart… on the same show? Good Lord… this has got to be one of the ‘Once every 1,000 years on the Mayan calendar’ moments.
Indeed… we may be witnesses to one of nature’s rarest phenomena…
Maximum Suckage…
Kinda akin to a black hole… only blacker… w/ a stronger sucking action…
geg6
@John:
From Wiki, a description of the effectiveness of LBJ’s senate leadership and how he got fellow senators to do what he wanted:
He got his people to do what he wanted, no matter how he had to do it. As for the Civil Rights Acts of ’57 and ’60, I would respectfully disagree. The ’57 Act was the first time Congress even addressed voting rights for blacks since Reconstruction. Seems to me, getting it addressed after 100 years of nothing is a pretty big thing, even if it wasn’t as effective as anyone would have liked. And for the ’60 Act, Johnson kept the Senate on 24-hour session to overcome the longest filibuster in history in order to get it passed.
Perhaps you lack some perspective on how difficult it was to get any of this stuff done back then. I know I don’t. I was young, but I remember watching children my age at the time being mowed down by dogs and firehoses. And I remember my mother going South for civil rights marches with her priest and my father worrying she’d be killed. Say what you will about LBJ on about any other subject, but he was tireless and absolutely committed on Civil Rights. The 1964 Act would never have passed under Kennedy. It was Johnson who knew that he could parlay the sympathy toward Kennedy and the assassination into real and radical change on civil rights, a change that would have taken perhaps another decade or so without his legislative know-how.
Lolis
Nah … Does anyone care about this beside beltway media types? I have not seen one person that has appeared honestly offended by this.
JenJen
This may be one of the funniest Tweets ever written, from Roger Ebert:
Death Panel Truck
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, for all its faults, was the first legislation of its kind passed since Reconstruction, and paved the way for the CRAs of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Update: What geg6 said. Didn’t see that comment before posting mine.
General Winfield Stuck
Reid is not going to resign. Aside from the glaring difference in context between his and Lott’s remark. Or, Lott endorsing the Dixiecrat candidacy of Thurmond’s presnit run on the single issue of opposing integration, versus Reid who supported the first black presnit, there is the pragmatic fact that Reid is running for reelection this year. Dems will not force him, nor let the press and wingnuts further endanger and endangered dem senate seat, and help foster another embarrassment of losing it’s caucus leader ala Daschle.
When the senate returns next week, HCR will again take center stage, and this kerfuffle will fade from the news cycle.
edit– and then there is the fact that Lott resigned largely because the Bush WH wanted him out to get their guy Bill Frist into the winger majority slot. Dems and anyone who follows these sort of things, know that full well. Inside baseball is all this is. The country at large knows the vast difference between dems and repubs on racial issues.
Keith G
@geg6: As a child I went into segregated restaurants while traveling with family, though at the time I did not understand what the “No Coloreds” signs were all about. Yes LBJ fought some tough battles. What’s often forgotten is how much of Ike’s legislation was helped along by Johnson.
Pasquinade
@JenJen, that Ebert Tweet is full of win.
Still laughing.
catclub
Not sure if Cokie Roberts is as bad a weathervane as Bill
Kristol, but she was on NPR this morning saying that Reid would survive without a problem.
Makes me worry, a little.
ricky
@catclub:
Perhaps Cokie undestands that because Reid spends time in middle American haunts like Vegas instead of exotic Hawaii, he is better equipped to handle this bombshell in his underpants. Wait, it was an annonymous source in Clintons’ pants whom Kennedy drove off a bridge, right?
This is so confusing I have forgotten if Oprah slept with Tiger in another life before Leno was canned.
Steaming Pile
@Napoleon: MoDo should STFU. If there was ever a Ward Cleaver (or Cliff Huxtable, if you prefer) type in the White House, it’s Barack Obama. That’s what drives conservatives crazy.
John
geg6 – yes, I know LBJ was a very effective majority leader. I’m just not sure what results he had to show for this much vaunted effectiveness. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is supposedly his crowning achievement, but what happened there was that he basically got southern senators to agree not to filibuster it by insuring that it was as toothless as possible.
I suppose it’s possible that without LBJ, it wouldn’t have been passed at all, but, really, what “paved the way” for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the civil rights movement.
Now, as president, LBJ deserves enormous credit for managing the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But that was when he was president, not Senate majority leader.
I’m just puzzled by LBJ always being held up as everything that Harry Reid is not on the basis of his time as Senate Majority Leader, when in fact his tenure saw little in the way of notable legislation.
And if the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was an important step forward, etc. etc. etc., well, then Harry Reid just passed the most important health care reform bill since, well, LBJ was president. It’s not perfect, either, but it’ll do a hell of a lot more real good than the 1957 Civil Rights Act did.
John
As far as Reid, I’m not sure I understand the perception that he is embattled. Don’t you have to have people in your own party calling for your resignation before you become embattled? And don’t the Republicans have exactly no credibility on this issue? It seems like there’s a lot of GOP noise, but no real reason to think he’s endangered.
gwangung
Um. Yes. That’s EXACTLY it. And both are STILL first steps in building new institutions.
Looking back in hindsight and saying “But these are such little steps” ignores that THIS IS IN HINDSIGHT. Rarely are major changes in US society made with large first steps.
JenJen
From the Department of “Not Helping,” Professor Michael Eric Dyson said the following on MSNBC, just a few minutes ago:
I shit you not.
Brian J
@Max:
I think Michael D. was taking Bill Clinton’s alleged comment literally–as in, there’s no special, racially motivated, read-between-the-lines message.
Brian J
@JenJen:
Well, I guess we know what we’ll be hearing about for the rest of the week.
On a side note, if the name is not taken yet, that–Department of NOT HELPING–be a good name for a blog.
Keith G
@JenJen: Dyson and Smiley are of a group that expected/expects Obama to be and to do things which are not what Obama and his life have ever been about.
JenJen
@Keith G: Precisely. And they also seem interested in finding increasingly outrageous ways to express it, don’t they?
Michael D.
@Brian J: Yes.
“A few years ago” could equal 20 for Clinton, when Obama was in his 20s. I CAN see how it can be taken racially though. Absolutely.
I tend not do do knee-jerk jumps to those conclusions, however.
geg6
@John:
The fact that he got such an agreement, alone, is a significant achievement. I’m really not sure you truly understand how difficult that was. The fact that you pooh-pooh it so much makes it obvious to me that you don’t.
He used the same tactics he used as Majority Leader to get this done.
You seem to think the only legislation he got done was the Civil Rights Acts. There was a huge legislative agenda that won’t be held up in history books as “significant.” However, he got whatever it was he wanted passed. He worked well with Eisenhower and Sam Rayburn (Speaker of the House) and passed a huge number of extremely important pieces of legislation including the Federal Highway Act (which created the interstate highway system), much of Eisenhower’s foreign policy and defense agenda (which would be DFH by GOP standards today), and helped approve the SCOTUS nominations of Earl Warren (as Minority Leader), William Brennan, and Potter Stewart. And this is just the big stuff.
Not to mention that he was the youngest Minority Leader ever. Take a good long look at the Senate and tell me that this is not, in itself, a significant achievement.
The Republic of Stupidity
I would think LBJ might be remembered in a fonder light if he simply hadn’t chosen to keep digging that bottmless pit known as Veet Nam… just sayin’…
Shalimar
@John:
You say this, and then you claim later that LBJ’s accomplishments on civil rights were toothless. I assume you realize that most of Reid’s Democratic critics feel the same way about the version of health care reform that is a conference away from becoming law. It isn’t even close to what people wanted, and Reid takes part of the blame for giving away the store repeatedly without getting much in return. Maybe no one else could have done better in the same position, but that isn’t the general perception among democratic voters.
Keith G
@The Republic of Stupidity: That’s the Shakespearean quality of LBJ. The only thing he hated/feared more than escalating the war was what he knew the GOP *and many Southern Democrats* would do to him if he did not. Bad move.
To me, “what could have been” is so chilling. And LBJ’s punishment, besides an early death (65), was the complete self-knowledge of his self destruction.
Martin
Harry Reid burned a cross in my front yard and called my kid a nigger.
Well, actually I dreamed I was riding a bike last night and I passed a funny looking tree with red and yellow leaves, and my kid was making a sign and someone was yelling ‘bigger’, but I was traumatized when I woke up so Harry Reid is just like Obama, which means he’s just like Hitler, which means he’s a racist (Harry Reid, that is).
Oh, and old people watch sunday morning shows because they’re old and unless Hour of Power is their thing, the only other thing to watch is John McCain try to remember how many houses he owns on national TV. The sunday shows cater to old republicans because only old republicans watch the sunday shows.
asiangrrlMN
@JenJen: An op-ed by Ratface Pawlenty. I may puke now.
Nick
@geg6:
If by that you mean watering down the legislation to get Republican votes and strongarming liberals into voting for it, then yeah.
jetan
@Robin G.:
Quite perfect. Thank you.