Harry Reid Has Been Assimilated

If anybody had any doubts about in which direction congressional Deathocrats were going to go - the ostensible centrism purportedly personified by Senate Minority Leader "Dirty Harry" Reid or the crazoid left-wing extremism of DNC Chairman Howie Dean, that question has been drearily answered.

The recent spate of down-and-dirty vitriol by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has earned the admiration of Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, reports the Boston Globe.

Reid’s diatribes against Federal Reserve Board chairman, Alan Greenspan - "political hack" - and President Bush and his team - "drunk with power" – are reportedly just what the doctor ordered

"He’s honest and direct, which is what Governor Dean likes," enthused Laura Gross, a spokeswoman for Dean.

Translation: Reid is acting like a total asshole. That's what Dr. Demented - and the loathesome Deathocrat base who loves him - likes.

It would seem that Reid didn't put up much resistance to joining the Tinfoil Hat Collective.

According to the report, Reid and Dean have been in close phone contact these last few weeks, among other things, fashioning a media blitz designed to help torpedo Bush plans for private Social Security accounts.

Resistance, in this case, was indeed futile. Though that's not how this story tries to make it look.

Pundits express some surprise at the alliance, noting Reid’s history of having reservations about the former Vermont governor becoming the face of the
Democratic Party:

"I’m not sure Howard Dean is the answer to our problems," Reid said during the committee race. "For right or wrong, Howard Dean is recognized as part of the left, the antiwar crowd. I’m not sure we need more acrimony."

But that was then...

And this was inevitable.

The Globe piece goes on to speculate about how the Donks' scorched-earth strategy will play in the '06 elections, but as usual their Deathocrat-centric focus causes them to miss the point. It isn't what their party does that will matter in the next midterms, but how the Republicans react to it. If the GOP slaps down Dean, Reid & Co. by getting Social Security reform passed and the judicial filibuster blockade broken, all the lib rage in the world won't keep them from adding to their majorities. If 'Pubbies cave on these matters of utmost importance to their base, the base will stay home a year from November, and their majorities will erode or vanish altogether.

One thing seems certain: just because the "days of rage" of the last election didn't produce a Deathocrat victory doesn't mean the DisLoyal Opposition is going to abandon that strategy. To the contrary, they're going to keep getting louder, more extreme, and more hateful. If Republicans think they can't, or don't wish to, handle that, they better figure out a way to do so, because if that politicocultural mindset is ever rewarded at the polls, America really will be reprising 1930s Germany.

Only question will be whether our new "fuehrer" will sport a fondness for pantsuits.