Ringmaster Reid Cracks the Whip in the Senate Circus

Townhall.com::Ringmaster Reid Cracks the Whip in the Senate Circus::By Robert Bluey

Congress hasn?t accomplished much this year, but at least our politicians are displaying a flair for political theater.

Starring in the Senate productions is Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is ably supported by a cast that includes Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). They put on a show last week featuring an all-night Senate session convened to play to the anti-war crowd. The plot-line for this one-night-only production: a Levin-Reed amendment to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq beginning in four months. The slumber party got rolling after a candlelight vigil with anti-war activists and continued through the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Though the theatrics didn?t persuade the chamber to bring the measure up for a vote (it fell eight votes short of the 60 needed for cloture), Reid and crew did receive some sympathetic media reviews, which seemed to be their main goal after all.

It also provided an opportunity for the left to rail against conservatives. Liberals squawked that the minority wasn't playing fair -- that opponents of the measure should have let the outcome be determined by a simple majority vote. Funny how dramatically things have changed now that liberals run the show. When Reid served as minority leader, he employed the 60-vote threshold repeatedly -- to the applause of those now grousing about the ?obstructionist? gambit.

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