That sure didn't take long!

"Give 'Em Whine Harry" Reid, alleged Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, is already rolling out his excuses for why he can't get Democratic programs through even with a "veto-proof" majority of 60. From What’s So Super About a Supermajority? by Carl Hulse New York Times 07/01/09:

“We have 60 votes on paper,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Wednesday in an interview. “But we cannot bulldoze anybody; it doesn’t work that way. My caucus doesn’t allow it. And we have a very diverse group of senators philosophically. I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.”

If we could get a real Senate Majority Leader in his place, I'd gladly hand Give-'Em-Whine Harry to the Republicans. That would give the Dems "only" a 59-vote majority. But anyone who was willing to act like a real partisan leader could get pretty much all the Democratic programs through, including Obama's appointments, with a majority like Reid has had this year. Then they wouldn't have to whine. Or promise not to flex their "muscles", a statement premised on the claim that Reid actually has any real Democratic "muscles" to flex.

The batty notion that the Dems should choose majority leaders from marginal Democratic states is just nuts. The Nancy Pelosi model is much better. As a Democrat from San Francisco, the only electoral challenge she would really have to worry about would come if she weren't partisan and progressive enough.

Tags: harry reid, democratic party, democrats