Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I really should read my own blog.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Everybody saw this coming.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

In my day, never was longer.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Not all heroes wear capes.

He really is that stupid.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Excellent Read: “‘I hate palm trees’: The sentimental journey of Harry Reid”

Excellent Read: “‘I hate palm trees’: The sentimental journey of Harry Reid”

by | 100 Comments

This post is in: , ,

For certain extremely dry values of ‘sentimental’… President Obama and Joe Biden aren’t the only retiring Democrats keeping rhymes-with-bucket lists, per the Washington Post:

… Reid is known as a shrewd tactician, a killer who speaks softly but carries a sharp knife. Ask him about regrets or mistakes and he will often say he doesn’t like to look back. He’s the kind of a guy who hangs up without saying goodbye, who called George W. Bush a “loser” and told him to his face that “your dog is fat.” But as he prepares to leave the Senate, with high hopes for his successors, even Reid can’t avoid displaying something resembling human emotion.

He was spotted crying backstage at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia after giving a prime-time speech. He’s been telling the old war stories more often. And for once it seems as if he might actually care, just a little bit, about what people think about him; or at least what they think about the house he once kept. As the Chevrolet Suburban pulled away from the family home, Reid couldn’t help but look back one more away from the family home, Reid couldn’t help but look back one more time.

“You see the house they ruined?” he said…

“It’s going to be an adjustment, I wish I could stay in the Senate forever,” he said earlier that day. Reid, 76, is a remarkably unremarkable-looking man; tall but hunched, a pale face with pale eyes and hair now similarly devoid of color.

He walked to the SUV gingerly, donning sunglasses and leaning on a silver-tipped cane, his new necessities of the past several months. Early last year, the senator had been exercising in his suburban Las Vegas home when the elastic band he was using snapped in half, whacked him in the face and sent him crashing backward into a set of cabinets. He broke multiple bones in his face and remains blind in his right eye. For three months, he had to sleep sitting up in a chair.

“I was hurt, okay?” he said. “Worse than most people know.” Being laid up gave him time to think. He felt lucky to have been so physically able his whole life, and grateful that he and his wife had their health. Though the Senate was his great love, he decided he didn’t have it in him for another run.

Reid’s legacy has probably already been determined. He’ll take enormous credit, or blame, for getting the Affordable Care Act through Congress. He’ll be remembered for his life story: an up-by-his-bootstraps tale that began in Searchlight, a speck of a desert town an hour outside of Las Vegas. He boxed his way through college and worked as a Capitol Hill police officer to pay his way through law school. Born without a filter, he’ll also go down in history for audacious — sometimes dubious — broadsides against opponents (his claim that Mitt Romney “didn’t pay taxes for 10 years”), and the propensity to offend with an offhand remark (President Obama, he once declared, spoke with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”).

To cap his career, though, Reid wants to leave the Senate better than he found it. For him, that would mean making sure a Democrat takes over his seat, and regaining control of the chamber.

“It’s his highest priority,” says Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who serves with Reid in leadership…

Politico:

… Reid was responding to a Washington Post story Thursday night, in which Trump said “Harry Reid? I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces.” Trump was asked what he thought about the rail-thin Reid saying the real-estate mogul was “not slim and trim.”

Of course, Reid relishes these battles. He has been a top attack dog for Barack Obama, and now, with 53 days until the election, he’s stepping up his game for his former Senate colleague, Hillary Clinton.

“Trump rips off working people with scams like Trump University,” Reid said. “And while the people he ripped off suffer, Trump sits at the posh resort he bought with his daddy’s money, with no understanding of the misery he caused. Now, Trump’s business interests in foreign countries and his Ponzi-scheme fraud of a ‘charity’ make clear that Trump intends to scam all of America just like he rips off hard-working people. Trump can insult hard-working people. Trump can insult me all he wants but the American people deserve answers to these questions: Why did Trump appear to use his charity to enrich himself and bribe elected officials who were investigating his scams? Why does Trump refuse to cut ties with business interests that would allow him to exploit American foreign policy to enrich himself? What is Trump hiding in his tax returns?”

He added, “We know how to spot a con artist in Las Vegas. And Donald Trump is a con artist.”

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I haven’t always loved Harry Reid in the moment, but I’m going to miss him. Tough, principled old bird.

  6. 6.

    Cat48

    The Black Caucus is having their annual dinner tonight and Trevor Noah is hosting it. I don’t know when the Prez & Hills will speak tonight but they’re both there. CNN & Cspan are covering it lightly right now, but say they’ll cover both speeches, the president’s last one. :(

  7. 7.

    msdc

    Sorry to see Reid retire, but kudos to him for doing it in a presidential election year when we have a better chance of holding his seat. I wish more of his Democratic colleagues could think that pragmatically instead of letting ego and vanity take over.

  8. 8.

    Cat48

    @redshirt:

    Too much drama might make me tune out. The GOP is still clowning around with the budget up in the House. Ryan seems afraid to pass a $1T spending bill bc he promised he wouldn’t be like Boehner. He better man up quickly.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    During the Bush years I thought Harry was dull and ineffective. Boy was I wrong. He’s been indispensable for the last eight years.

  12. 12.

    jl

    Barney was fat!!?? Damn, I learn so much on this blog.

    Or is Reid just that much of a stone cold gangster to say it anyway?

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @SiubhanDuinne: They were either going to kill them with pesticides or with ducks, so what’s your point? :-)

    I was late to the thread last night but I wanted to be sure to tell you how much I appreciated the poem you posted yesterday. It really spoke to me. I saved a copy and I also sent the poem to a friend who lost his wife about a month ago after two years of hell (brain tumor). Is that poem published anywhere? Amazon told me he has a book of poems about his parents, but I wasn’t sure it would be part of that collection.

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    I need to make potato salad for a picnic tomorrow, but I’m tired after my adventures in downtown LA this afternoon. (See other thread for details.) Maybe I’ll be more in the mood after I rehydrate some more.

  16. 16.

    hovercraft

    @redshirt:
    I think both, and the injury was a wake up call for him. He wants to spend his final years with his family. Can’t say I blame him, who’d want to have to spend their final days dealing with GOP assholes like, the turtle and Cruz. That’s a huge sacrifice to ask of anyone.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne: You could always buy some and put it in a nice bowl from your house so people will think you made it. :-)

    Not that I would ever do such a thing. Actually, the only potato salad I ever liked was made by a boyfriend’s mom. Not a mayonnaise fan (or miracle whip) but this potato salad was awesome.

  18. 18.

    JMG

    @jl: He was real fat before he came out. Then he lost like 40 pounds. In the early ’80s, when he first ran for Congress, I worked at the Boston Phoenix, the alt weekly, and he sent us a stock photo of his new slim self (we’d been running a 1976 photo) with a one-word cover (on paper, no email then) “Please” being the only word. We changed.

  23. 23.

    hovercraft

    @Cat48:
    He needs to just accept that he’s screwed no matter what. If he goes with his caucus then he has to make more cuts and defund Obamacare, which would be unpopular and would be vetoed. Or he can go with Nancy Smash and have them all revolt because to get democrats he will have to make concessions.

  27. 27.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    OT: My mom called again. Dad had a mini stroke. Doc said he’s had several, perhaps as many as a dozen. He sounded like his old self, so I am hopeful that he will be ok. He seriously has to slow down though, that’s going to be hard on him.

    A decision has to be made concerning Grandma and the mass the doctor found. At 92,she’s not a good candidate for surgery or chemo, and with Alzheimers in full bloom, there seems to be no point. It’ll be a few days before we have to make a call, but I think she’s suffering enough as it is. We’ll see…

  28. 28.

    hovercraft

    @Cat48:
    The wife and daughters of the Rev. Pickney, the pastor at Emmanuel AME church and the families of other victims, were honored.

  29. 29.

    hovercraft

    @jl:
    He’s just crazy, I think he knew that RMoney had paid taxes, but he said he hadn’t to force him to prove he had. Straight Gangsta.

  36. 36.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:
    I don’t see anything on any of the local outlets, could you be referring to this morning bomb down the shore here in Jersey?

  37. 37.

    JMG

    @Quinerly: My bad. For us provincial Bostonians, when the topic is politics, there’s only one Barney. PS: Allentown Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll taken Tuesday-Friday shows Clinton up 9 head-to-head, up 8 four-way. WARNING. Pennsylvania is second-crappiest in-state polling stater after Michigan. But still better up in a possibly crappy poll than down.

    tues

  42. 42.

    Mike J

    Home from sailing. Awesome day. 15 gusting 30 from the SSE, did a dinghy check ride for a beginner[1] and took 5 people out on our 27′ cruising boat. Whitecaps all over, everyone one the windward rail,spray over the bow. All after our annual shoreline cleanup and cookout. Salmon burgers…..mmmmm.

    [1] This is normally a bad idea, but he did a great job. Stood the boat up with the spreaders damn near in the water a few times, but kept it upright.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t think it is in that collection, but I will ask him if it is published anywhere and let you know.

    Charles is a wonderful poet, and one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Really funny, too.

  47. 47.

    JPL

    I love this tweet
    Guidelines when there’s a sudden crisis:
    The news tries to be accurate
    Twitter is sometimes accurate
    Trump just says shit

  50. 50.

    Feathers

    @Cat48: I hope somebody give Larry Wilmore a weekly show. Nightly Show was not helped by trying to keep up with the news cycles. The hosts of these shows barely stay on top of it with a full writing staff behind them. Guests for every night too much. He should fill the hour of Sam Bee’s show.

  52. 52.

    hovercraft

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
    Sorry about your Grandma and your Dad. When it rains it pours. Glad to hear that your Dad seems okay. My Dad had CHF and advanced Alzheimers, and we had to make the decision on what treatments to put him through for his heart given his quality of life at that point. We left it to my Mom to make the call, they were married for 50 years and it was her decision. She chose not to pursue any of the aggressive treatments that his cardiologist was suggesting, and instead we brought him home and brought in hospice care. For us it was the right decision, but it’s a hard and personal one. Best of luck whatever you and your family decide.

  53. 53.

    frosty

    @Mike J:

    Whitecaps all over, everyone one the windward rail,spray over the bow.

    Sounds great. My rule-of-thumb is that you haven’t been sailing unless your butt got wet.

  54. 54.

    Feathers

    @redshirt: Josh Marshall was tweeting the its across the street from his apartment. He’s away, but building has been under construction for a while. Not necessarily a bomb.

  57. 57.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:

    CHELSEA, Manhattan — Multiple people were injured during an outdoor explosion in Chelsea Saturday night.

    The explosion happened at 135 23rd St. between Sixth and Seventh avenues.

    Sources say 26 people have minor injuries.

    The victims were taken to area hospitals.

    The FDNY is on the scene with the NYPD Counterterrorism Unit.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mike J:

    Started thinking that I might want to get a look at some tall ships and maybe get a ride on one for my novel, and discovered that I had missed the annual festival in Dana Point (CA) by two days. D’OH!

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne

    @hovercraft:

    It could potentially be a gas leak or something similar — we had a truly nasty one happen in California near San Francisco where people died.

    If it was a bomb, thank God it sounds like the asshole who set it was incompetent.

  64. 64.

    smintheus

    @hovercraft: I think Reid knew that Romney or his wife had been caught up in the UBS scandal and therefore could not risk trying to refute any allegations about his tax records that Reid or anyone might make.

    On his 2010 tax return, Romney disclosed that his wife Ann’s trust held $3 million in a Swiss bank account at UBS, which had just been busted by the IRS for abetting criminal tax evasion by U.S. citizens. As part of a $780 million settlement, UBS was forced to turn over the names of thousands of its long-secret clients, who were then offered a partial amnesty: disclose their hidden assets, pay penalties and avoid prosecution. Romney – who had omitted the Swiss account on previous financial disclosures – suddenly came clean. Did he reveal his secret account to avoid prosecution for tax evasion? “He’s not quite denied that,” says Daniel Shaviro, a professor of tax law at NYU. The record of paying an IRS penalty on the Swiss account could explain why Romney has been so determined to keep his 2009 tax return under wraps.

    That also explains why Obama kept hammering Romney about not releasing his taxes. In theory Romney could have wrong-footed Obama by releasing tax returns that showed nothing abnormal. But Obama presumably knew that Romney had been granted amnesty in the UBS scandal (a program run out of the Obama White House rather than by the IRS).

  68. 68.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):

    When they MRI’ed my knee, they put headphones on me and let me pick the radio station. Don’t pick a pop music station, because the rotation schedule means you’ll hear the same damn songs over and over again. Having the headphones and closing my eyes kept me from freaking out, and I tend to be a little claustrophobic.

    And if you have someone to drive you back and forth, a Valium might help.

  70. 70.

    MD Rackham

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I used to go caving in my youth. Loved the tight spaces.

    I now need 1.5 mg of Za-nax (FYWP) to do an MRI. I tried without it and seriously embarrassed myself. Had to come back another day.

    (While I was out of it, the tech told my wife it was “an old white guy thing” as he shrugged.)

  74. 74.

    hovercraft

    Obama, “Hillary’s opponent says there’s never been a worse time to be a black person, well he must have missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow, but we’ve got a whole museum for him to visit.”

  75. 75.

    Bruce Webb

    Just had an MRI. 2nd one. On thumping: right earplugs make all the difference. This time they used the yellow ones you might use in a factory rather than headphones. Simple is best. On tight spaces: I don’t like stuff right over my face, I lose it when trying to snorkel. On the other hand what you never see you can imagine away, I just close my eyes BEFORE they slide that thing over your face. And then distract myself from the ever varying thumps by trying to “feel” the magnetic waves. Kind of like that first half hour before the LSD or mushrooms kick in: “am I high yet?”. The combo of closed eyes, deep breathing, concentrating on my inner mind puts me in a dream state of sorts. Not quite asleep but drifting along.
    Our host might find this familiar from trying to catch a few winks in a tank or even a truck under movement. It never STOPS being loud or bumpy but your state alters anyway. (And MRI’s aren’t bumpy)

  81. 81.

    smintheus

    @JMG: All public polls s^ck for the same reason, the response rate is lower than ever. This season, the response rate is also unusually susceptible to partisan ebbs/flows in enthusiasm for Trump or Clinton.

    This year especially, college polls everywhere seem to be outliers more often than not.

  85. 85.

    delk

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I just had my 6th MRI a couple months ago.
    I keep my eyes closed and I listen to music. I count the songs and estimate each as 3 minutes as a way to keep track of time. The noise does not bother me and sometimes it is in time with the music.
    The new machines are a little bit bigger and my doctor says the pictures are a lot better.
    I actually fell asleep during the 5th one but oddly was very uptight going in for the 6th. Once it started though, I was pretty relaxed.
    Not MRI related, but Monday I am scheduled to have surgery for a hernia.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I asked Charles. He replied:

    Judith, it’s going to be in my next book but has yet to be published. So I’d just ask that people share it with friends if they’d like but keep it a little low key…

    I’ll let everyone know when his next collection is published. In the meantime, enjoy and appreciate for private use.

  93. 93.

    jimmiraybob

    “With my good eye, I see Trump is a con-artist.”

    People with not quite so clear a vision love their con artist while the con it in play. Once they realize that they’ve been conned then maybe not so much.

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Way late getting back to this thread and just saw your family news. So sorry to hear about your grandmother and your dad. Sending hugs, good thoughts and prayers your way.

    Not sure whether the MRI question if for you or a family member, but the answer is yes. My brother-in-law has to take xanax in order to be able to do that. I think a lot of people do, so don’t worry about that.

  95. 95.

    Original Lee

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I had to be sedated for an MRI once. I had severe vertigo that got worse when lying flat, so I was refusing to lie down. They decided that if they sedated me, there was a good chance I wouldn’t vomit all over the inside of the machine, rendering it useless for several hours, and they were right. It turned out to be an inner ear infection.

  97. 97.

    StringOnAStick

    I just took my husband to the airport to go be with his brother; his brother’s oncologist told him he’s got maybe a month left before the tumors in his lungs simply stop them from working. Once I get my last of 3 knee injections next Friday I will fly there too. As of now he’s not ready to accept calling in hospice, but we need to get him on oxygen I suspect just to ease his breathing. Not only is his a super rare form of lymphoma, the variant is the most treatment resistant and no record of ever going into the lungs like this. He may make it to his 57th birthday but not much after that I’m afraid.

    They lost their dad in late May, and my husband and I lost the best pet we’d ever had last October, so this rates as a really lousy year.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    “With my good eye, I see Trump is a con-artist.” — Harry Reid

    I love that comment. Saw him make it on CNN after the Trumpmercial/seconds of birther statement.

    Short and not sweet. Did it make the nightly news? Get covered widely?

  100. 100.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Similarly, my mother, who passed on a year ago August in the middle of her 103rd year–the first 94 were lively & well-lived, then the dementia set in. At the end she was in some major distress – no one could figure out what the problem was, & she could no longer tell us.

    Death is never a blessing – but often it can be a mercy.

    Hugs, my friend, from our grieving family to you & yours. You are held in whatever light there might be beyond the gloom.

Comments are closed.