Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

So many bastards, so little time.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Bark louder, little dog.

We still have time to mess this up!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / Rest in Power, Harry Reid

Rest in Power, Harry Reid

by | 82 Comments

This post is in: ,

… Over more than three decades of service in Congress, Reid earned a reputation for fighting relentlessly to protect his home state and everyday Americans. As Senate Democratic leader for a dozen years, he played an instrumental role in passing the Affordable Care Act and shepherding through Congress pivotal economic recovery legislation in the wake of the Great Recession.

“I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement.

President Joe Biden called Reid “a dear friend and a giant of our history.”

“If Harry said he would do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades,” Biden said in a statement. “Harry looked at the challenges of the world and believed it was within our capacity to do good, to do right, and to do our part of perfecting the Union we all love.”

Reid also spent considerable time focusing on water, energy and public lands, issues at the forefront of a state that was undergoing rapid growth. In 2020, Reid said more than half of his congressional papers dealt, in some form, with the environment.

A savvy dealmaker and sometimes polarizing figure who made as many enemies as he did friends, Reid still earned the respect of colleagues in both parties — sometimes turning former enemies to friends. Soft-spoken with a sharp tongue, Reid compelled those around him to listen…

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    “In the Name of Love” will be performed by singer Carole King.

    A deep cut. I would imagine Harry Reid requested it. I wonder what the significance is.

  2. 2.

    japa21

    Harry Reid was a man of integrity, honor and almost all the other honorifics you would want to add. He also knew what was and what wasn’t possible. He would fight for what was and would try to accomplish as close to what wasn’t as possible.
    He was also frequently vilified more by Dems than by Republicans. Even here people would call him weak and spineless.
    When he retired, suddenly he became a miracle worker with shoes Schumer couldn’t dream of filling.
    Which makes me wonder how Schumer will be viewed when he retires.

  3. 3.

    Almost Retired

    I have to think his leadership and his stature helped turned Nevada purplish.  Priced-out Californians couldn’t do it alone.

  4. 4.

    Matt McIrvin

    @japa21: I remember the transition from “feckless wimp” to “miracle worker” in attitudes toward Reid happening once Reid actually became Majority Leader with a Democratic President, and had a sufficiently good hand that he could actually get things done.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I remember how much shit he (and Pelosi) took from certain corners of the left blogosphere back in ’07-10, but he was a wily and almost ruthless old codger of the sort we could see more of.

  7. 7.

    CaseyL

    Yeah, even we cognoscenti have been known to fall for the “leadery leadership” nonsense.  Less and less as time goes on, thankfully.

    Reid worked with the tools available to him.  Schumer at least has a somewhat less fractious caucus: still a few recalcitrants, but not nearly as many as Reid had to deal with.

  12. 12.

    Benw

    I love in the blurb about Harry Reid and the mob that it might be Harry Reid who was about to be arrested before choking the dude out. RIP

  13. 13.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Old School: The Natalie Ravitz thread is worth clicking through to for those who didn’t click on the links.

    By all means, click through to that one. But be warned, your vision might get a bit blurry before you’re done.

    I read it two weeks ago, and just now my eyes started tearing up just from the remembrance of it.

  15. 15.

    japa21

    @NotMax:  The phrase has a lot of meanings, but in this case it is probably meant to connote that his legacy will be lasting and still have influence.

  17. 17.

    Nicole

    Thanks for this post; what a great collection of pieces about a true lion of the Senate.  I also remember all the criticism he got as Minority Leader from many of us Democrats, which was so annoying as it seemed very clear that he was doing the very best he could with what he had.  And when he had more, oh, did he do more.  I have a friend, in her early 40s, who is posting endless photos of herself in bikinis; she enters fitness and body building competitions. It’d be annoying except that, around the time the ACA was being pushed into law, she had a serious accident that left her with cerebral fluid leakage.  She couldn’t continue at work (as she couldn’t stand or sit upright without being dizzy), so she lost her job and her health insurance.  Friends were kicking in money to keep her rent paid.  The ACA was what made it possible for her to get health coverage and the care (including surgery) she needed to get her on the way to recovery.  She’s employed again (has been for years now), and every time I see one of her “look at my physique!” photos, I’m happy for her.  Bonus points, she was a conservative prior to the accident, but the ACA shifted her position.  The ACA has given countless people like my friend their lives back, and we were so lucky that it was Harry Reid in the Majority Leader’s office when it was time to get it done.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @japa21:

    Even here people would call him weak and spineless. When he retired, suddenly he became a miracle worker…

    That does not match my recollection at all.

    There may have been a time when people here would call Harry Reid weak and spineless – hell, if you go back way more than a decade, I even thought Reid and Pelosi were the devil.

    But Harry Reid was respected and appreciated here for close to a decade before he retired.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    RE: Rest in Power

    Am at a total loss trying to figure what that is supposed to mean.

    As others have noted, it connotes a lasting legacy, but I also admit that I don’t like the phrase.

    I suppose that I am old fashioned, here. The phrase just seems clunky, but I guess it is here to stay.

     

     

  20. 20.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @WaterGirl: I don’t if its me and my phone but I’ve been having problem with BJ. Using Kiwi right now but was having issues with Chrome. I think its my phone.

  21. 21.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @A Ghost to Most:

    Harry was a Fighting Democrat. I miss that.

    When he was majority leader most people who talk about “fighting” called him a Blue Dog hack because you still had to get to fifty, or sixty, even with somebody un-concerned with social niceties

  22. 22.

    laura

    The endless heaps of shit talking by democrats is what I recall of Harry Reid- that and his continued work despite the shit winds. I’ll  go to my grave embarassed by my fellow party members who always seem to find a way to bray about their wishes and dreams not being granted immediately and blaming those who just keep chopping wood and carrying water as the cause of the extreme butt hurt.

    A lifetime of service in the public interest is a life worthy of respect and admiration even if I means I still get no sparkle pony.

  23. 23.

    JML

    Harry Reid was a true legislator. He wanted to DO things, to try and make the country and the world better, not just sit there and try and block everything and pretend everything is just fine. Tough, smart, and fearless but with a deep well of compassion for people. Those are the people I want running the country: the people with the compassion to sit with Natalie Ravitz as she’s going through the worst time in her life to try and make it a little better for her.

    He will be missed.

  24. 24.

    Chris

    @Nicole:

    The ACA has given countless people like my friend their lives back, and we were so lucky that it was Harry Reid in the Majority Leader’s office when it was time to get it done.

    It certainly made my young adulthood a lot more bearable.  First, it enabled me to stay on my parents’ health insurance until I was 26.  Then…  I’ll never forget turning 26 in Florida when I had no income (student), and having them explain to me that having no income in Florida means not being eligible for any kind of coverage assistance at all.  (Because the fucking Nine had bumped the Medicaid expansion back to the States by then, and of course Florida said no).  As soon as my degree was done, I high-tailed it back to Maryland where they did take the ACA expansion, and was able to be on Medicaid when I was unemployed, and then on subsidized plans until I was able to find a job that offered health insurance coverage.  (Before I left Florida, I also got to see a coworker die from what would almost certainly have been a treatable problem if he’d had good continuous coverage… except he had no insurance and was relying on the charity clinic that was only opened once or twice a week).

    But the entire thing was pretty formative in that if it hadn’t been for the ACA, I wouldn’t even have had the option of “move back to Maryland, at least they took the Medicaid expansion!”  And also that I would never have even had to do that if the Nine hadn’t monkey-wrenched the Medicaid expansion… which gave me very little tolerance for the kind of shitbags who moan “talking about the Supreme Court is blackmail!”  (Granted, also very little tolerance for Supreme Court justices who ignore questions like “but who’s going to appoint my replacement?”)

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “Why is Biden wasting his time at a funeral for someone he knew?” — The WaPo.

  27. 27.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Brachiator: For me, it’s the oxymoronic quality of the phrase that gets under my skin.  When you rest, you lay down such power as you have.  You can use it, or you can rest.

  31. 31.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Resting in power, whatever it means, doesn’t seem restful.

    Yes! That is part of it.

    I keep conjuring images of dead humans as batteries.

    But I suppose I will get used to it over time.

  32. 32.

    Itinerantpedant

    Am I nuts in reading the President’s line about Reid, “If Harry said he would do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it,” as being a swipe at Manchin?

  34. 34.

    Cacti

    Harry Reid was born in Searchlight, NV.

    If you’ve ever seen that town, you’d never believe that someone from it could become a US Senate leader.

  36. 36.

    gvg

    Rest in Power seems to have some meaning to black evangelicals here in Florida. I see it all the time on funeral programs. Students turn them in to support Academic Progress petitions to show a relative died.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @Itinerantpedant:

    Am I nuts in reading the President’s line about Reid, “If Harry said he would do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it,” as being a swipe at Manchin?

    If it is, it is nicely done.

  40. 40.

    Cacti

    @Quinerly: My condolences to the kid.

    Raphael was already in the habit of throwing his kids under the bus.

    Now it will always be “her fault” that he didn’t become GOP nominee.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I wouldn’t trust this erratic crank to tell me what time it is, but…. (thread)

    Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur

    Manchin: “Now with that, I say: To make this place work better, we do need some rule changes and I think the Democrats or Republicans can agree on that, because both are frustrated.”
    He floats 51 votes to open debate, 3/5ths present, guaranteed amendments, talking filibuster. 2/

  42. 42.

    MazeDancer

    Watching Harry Reid’s memorial service was so uplifting.

    Have to admit I did not consider him a giant when he was majority leader. Apparently, I was wrong.

    Every speaker loved him. Deeply. Including Pelosi, Schumer, Obama, and Biden.

    And he was so completely dedicated to America and the little guy.

    Also felt that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, while praising Harry, were also preaching to Joe Manchin. Especially the “Harry knew when change was necessary” part.

  48. 48.

    Ruckus

    @Itinerantpedant:

    I doubt I would give it that much power.

    You may be right about it, but I’d say Joe Biden has always pretty much said what he means pretty clearly. Very little needs any parsing nor does the parsing very often stand at the end of the day. It’s one of the things that makes him who he is, he doesn’t need explaining, pretty much what you see and hear is what you get.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @trollhattan:

    Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy b … sorry.

    Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence.

    What happens now?

  51. 51.

    Fleeting Expletive

    @Matt McIrvin: When she said a few days ago that Congressmembers should be able to trade stocks like anyone else it surprised me.  Since then, though, there seems to be movement towards more restrictions, with support from some surprising quarters, like (spit) Josh Hawley and a bunch of Republicans.

    I think they should be barred from investing in stocks, limited to public funds and the like.  Her statement may have created what we’re calling these days a “permission structure” to let sundry random members sign on to the idea.  Maybe?

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Fleeting Expletive:

    I had the same reaction.  Whether intentional or not, she made it possible for a bunch of white guys to be on the right side of an issue, since they’ll never pass up an opportunity to stick it to an older Dem woman.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Fleeting Expletive: a rare misstep that I suspect came from 1) her intense focus on so many things she thinks (rightly, IMHO) are more important and 2) her confidence that she and her husband have done nothing wrong

    I think it’s the spousal issue that gets tricky, because I absolutely think electeds should be barred from active trading, though I think mutual funds should be allowed, or some kind of special blind trust?
    and even then, how far down the chain of staff, and spouses, do you go?

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    “We’ve got the latest from Manchin’s Intransigence, Instagram Ghost, coming up after these messages….”

  62. 62.

    NotMax

    OT.

    Involuntary salivation going on in force.

    Removed the pan with a chocolate-banana-walnut brownie loaf from the oven. Aroma is suffusing the cottage.

    ;)

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Good one.

    Manchin did not like being called out by Biden/Psaki in the statement that came out just before the holidays. I think he won’t like being called out again if nothing goes through.

    If Manchin is smart, he’ll make sure that Biden doesn’t get a second opportunity to call him untrustworthy. A  disappointment. An obstacle to progress.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    if this kind of parsing is what it takes to get institutionalist to move forward, okay

    Changing Filibuster For Voting Rights Addresses Structural Issue, King Says

    Sen. Angus King (I-ME) just called the vote on voting rights legislation likely the most important of his career. On the issue of changing the filibuster to allow that vote to happen in the first place, King said he would oppose the change if it was done for the sake of a “policy issue.” But voting rights, King said, are a “structural issue.”

  66. 66.

    bemused senior

    Read the nv independent obit for Reid. Especially the last part about his vision of the state Democratic party. A 12 month party.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: King has been amenable to a carve-out for a while, I believe, but I’m struck by that language and I wonder if it’s made for Manchin

  69. 69.

    NotMax

    Another OT.

    E-mailed something she had asked about to 93-year-old Mom.

    Her complete reply e-mail? “Awesome, dude.”

    :)

  71. 71.

    catclub

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jim Clyburn is emphasizing that the bill they are using to overcome the filibuster is Manchin’s election bill, not HR1 or HR4.  I did not know that manchin wants to keep the filibuster for his own bill.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @catclub: I’m unsure of the specifics, but I believe he’s said many times that not only does he want the filibuster, he wants “bipartisan support”

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    On the domestic front, furnace was restored to life yesterday after a {checks notes} 12-day hiatus. [fun fact: replacing the induction blower assembly cost the same as a BMW water pump replacement. Have they been talking? Experts disagree.]

    Huzzah! Today, we celebrate the return of our environmental support system with an all-day power cutoff, so the electric utility can replace some pole (big fan of underground utilities). In the spirit of the day I’m at the office and a good thing I brought the laptop because the desktop PC won’t boot and oh, the facilities people have not made the cube changes I requested in {checks notes} November when we made the move here. Good thing I don’t have any “real” work.

  76. 76.

    lowtechcyclist

    @CaseyL:

    Yeah, even we cognoscenti have been known to fall for the “leadery leadership” nonsense.  Less and less as time goes on, thankfully.

    Reid worked with the tools available to him.  Schumer at least has a somewhat less fractious caucus: still a few recalcitrants, but not nearly as many as Reid had to deal with.

    I think one thing that was still going on with a lot of people a dozen years ago, was the lack of understanding of what was going on with the filibuster.  The way Mitch was using it (filibustering everything, rather than just the handful of bills he regarded as most odious) was still a fairly new thing, dating back to 2007 – and it didn’t really get that much attention in 2007-08 since the only effect was that bills got bottled up in the Senate, instead of Bush having to veto them.  Stuff was dead either way, so it didn’t really seem to matter how it was killed.

    So you get to 2009, and the Dems have huge fucking majorities in both houses of Congress, and people honestly can’t understand what the hold-up is, why the Dems can’t just pass whatever the fuck they want to pass.  (I’m sympathetic because when I was trying to make sense of it during the 2007-08 Congress, I had a hard time getting my head around it.)

    So even though I knew how the game was rigged by then, I can quite understand how millions of voters were confused, and concluded that the Dems really didn’t want to pass the things they said they wanted to pass.  I can’t blame them for staying home in November 2010, because that was about the only conclusion that voters who weren’t political junkies like us could have drawn.

    There was also the problem of the large Blue Dog contingent in both houses: I remember that despite having >250 House Dems, Pelosi was always passing stuff with 220 or 221 votes.  (She somehow got 8 House Republicans to vote for cap-and-trade, and the bill wouldn’t have passed without them. Masterful.)  That’s another thing that confused people’s perceptions.  “The Dems” said they wanted to do X, Y, and Z, but a whole lot of them…really didn’t.

    And in the absence of actual votes, the dividing lines within the caucus weren’t clear.  Even knowing the score and trying to pay attention, I couldn’t have told you more than two or three names of Senators who were gumming up the works during those few months when we had 60 Senators, and I know there were more than that.

    Again, the natural conclusion for most people was that “the Dems” didn’t want these things they ran on, that there was some failure of the will.

  78. 78.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence, Manchin’s intransigence.

    What happens now?

    The monster the Candy Manchin appears and takes away all your tax credits.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I would ask, What are the real, honest reasons people run for national elected office? I imagine the list would be not all that long but would likely surprise quite a few people.

     

    We have a political system that allows a lot of latitude of political opinions and a governing system that drills down to pretty small individual segments. Or we did. Over the years, as the population has grown and the house has not those numbers have favored even more, the professional political operatives, and given the states even more power over our lives. The result is that the monied segment is more able to govern than the overall people. And it isn’t supposed to be that way – OK it was actually set up that way but the house did grow till it got to it’s current size and the number of reps was fixed, which changed a lot of what our government actually is versus what it is supposed to be, according to the founding documents. And it has skewed our national government, and politics, away from this being an actual democracy to very much attempting to becoming a plutocracy.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    OT, but 32 people who signed up for the book club have not let me know whether you plan to attend by zoom or just on the BJ threads.

    The first meeting is tomorrow.

    I cannot send a zoom link if I don’t know you plan to zoom.

    If you are on this lit, please send me email message and let me know your plan for the book club:

    Another Scott
    beth
    Denali
    Elizabelle
    ellie
    GregMulka
    HeleninEire
    Immanentize
    Jack the Cold Warrior
    Jean
    jerry kirschner
    Jim, Foolish Literalist
    Kayla Rudbek
    Krakengonewild
    Leto
    lifeinthebonusround
    Low Key Swagger
    Mdub
    Miki
    PAM dirac
    pat
    Paul W.
    S. Cerevisiae
    sam
    schrodingers_cat
    swordfish
    The Dangerman
    thruppence
    West of the Rockies
    Wormtown
    Yutsano
    zamphuor
  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus: 

    OK it was actually set up that way but the house did grow till it got to it’s current size and the number of reps was fixed, which changed a lot of what our government actually is versus what it is supposed to be, according to the founding documents. And it has skewed our national government, and politics, away from this being an actual democracy to very much attempting to becoming a plutocracy.

    You could have more representatives and more senators, but I don’t know that the problems would go away. Just more people to bribe.

    And there will always be special interests. It is up to the representatives to be honest and to the voters to be vigilant and to hold them accountable.

  82. 82.

    waynel140

    I’m proud I got the opportunity to vote for Harry against Sharon Angle. She was Trump before Trump, at the beginning of the current oddities running for office. She was supposed to win. Harry crushed her.

    I wasn’t always an admirer, but he and I both changed our minds. He was one of the few people who were natural conservatives who became more liberal as they got older. That is a rare quality, in my experience, and one to be awed by, being so rare. It could also be more evidence of how the line has shifted so far right that those who once disagreed with me are now on the same side.

    He was always a fighter. I can’t wait to fly back into Harry Reid International airport. Not sure I won’t shed a tear.

Comments are closed.