Harry Reid Has A Screw Loose

That title sounds a bit caustic, doesn't it? Like I'm seated before my keyboard after an excessively aggravating afternoon puncuated by a particularly restlessly nap that has left me more tired and groggy than I was before it and consequently feel more like unloading indiscriminately than I do putting forth the effort to produce something to my usual high standards of cleverness and rapier wit.

Except that I really believe it. Oh, it's not a clinical diagnosis by any means, but alternative explanations for Dirty Harry's roaring hypocrisies of late are highly elusive.

Try this one on for size:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid urged President Bush Tuesday to "come clean" in next week's State of the Union speech and acknowledge "the costs of Republican corruption."

"In his 2000 campaign, George Bush promised to bring 'dignity' to the White House, but we've since found that he brought Jack Abramoff instead," said Reid, D-NV. He spoke at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, in remarks previewing Democratic criticism of the presidential speech on January 31st.

"President Bush needs to quit stonewalling about his White House's connection to corruption, and finally tell us how he's going to reform Washington," Reid said.

This from the man who is titular head of a party that spent the entire decade of the 1990s defending Bill Clinton. This from the man who is the #1 target of the Justice Department's Abramoff investigation. This from the man who responded to questions of his own Abramoff connections with a brusque, heatedly furtive, and Bart Simpsonesque, "Don’t try to say I received money from Abramoff. I’ve never met the man, don’t know anything.” And this about a man of whom there is not a single molecule of evidence ever took anything from Jack Abramoff or provided any access or favors to "the man" whatsoever.

Reid's crazy allegations have all the seriousness of, "Oh, yeah? Well I'm rubber, you're glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." Which is also pretty descriptive of them as well.

Incidentally, "the costs of Republican corruption" have counted one of Reid's Donk colleagues, Pat "Leaky" Leahy, as a prime beneficiary of thousands of smackers in contributions from Abramoffic law firms according to the Vermont Guardian, earning a suitably "caught red-handed-with-hand-in-cookie-jar-and-deer-in-the-headlights" denial from Leaky's spokesman. It's clear that this Abramoff stuff is bipartisan to a fault, public polling numbers prove that general perception, and yet Democrats continue to pathetically try and pigeonhole blame on their foes. Even "pathological" strains to encapsulate it.

And as if anticipating this very criticism, Senator Pencil-Neck attempted on Friday, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to "speak up and remove all doubt":

Cities are at risk because the Bush Administration is too preoccupied with its political problems to properly prepare for another natural disaster or terrorist attack, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told mayors from around the country Friday....

Reid said the poor choices of the Administration and Republicans in Congress are also evident in steps securing the nation after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Efforts to spend more money for emergency workers in cities were rejected as well as efforts to restore money for extra police, he said....

Reid also said many steps recommended by a commission examining national security after the terror attacks have not been taken, such as strengthening security for ports and rail transportation. He questioned spending billions on Iraq and tax breaks for the wealthy rather than for security improvements in cities.

"If we can spend $2 billion every week to protect the Iraqi people, we can do more to protect our people at home," Reid said.

This from the man who bragged to a rabid Dem throng last month, "We've killed the Patriot Act!"

It's as I predicted years ago: the party of Bill Clinton has all of his integrity and not the first smidgeon of talent at effectively using it. The true "felon-in-chief" was a pathological liar, but he was a good at it - indeed, arguably the best ever. Harry Reid, by contrast of the aforementioned, is like the hapless fat guy in the Capitol One commercials whom David Spayed can't train to consistently tell customers "no!". Reid lies, but they're such obvious whoppers that have not the slightest chance of convincing anybody beyond the fifth or so of the public that already hates Bush as insanely as Reid does - or is compelled by partisan necessity to pretend that he does.

Ironically, it's that last act, if act it truly is, that alone is convincing - and is more than sufficient to keep Reid's party securely in the minority for years to come.

Talk about a walking, living, breathing Peter Principle. Pity for his sake that he's a talking one as well.