Haven't been posting from "The Note" lately.
FOR SEN. HARRY REID: Many Democrats are still taking your measure as one of their leaders; if you think that "asking" the White House in high moral dudgeon to call off the incessant, cookie cutter attacks on your alleged Blue State tendencies will achieve anything but making you look a bit naïve, you have another thing coming.
FOR GOV. HOWARD DEAN: If you haven't asked several smart people if your icky favorable/unfavorable ratings matter, and, if they do, what is to be done about them, a case could be made that you are even less prepared for your new job than those who are most worried about the words "DNC Chairman Howard Dean" fear.
Bush vs. Reid:
We realize that the White House began its "let's stick it to Harry Reid" campaign in earnest yesterday, but we wonder if it's just a tad too early for the Senate Minority Leader to be so publicly offended. It's a long congressional session, this stuff has only just begun, both sides are just starting to throw down on the budget and Social Security, and, well, we can't think of an instance in which crying foul has ever called off the dogs before. Is this being done to prod Reid to react, thereby forcing/allowing Frist to use the nuclear option on judges?
That said, perhaps this is a feint, because Reid is a fighter. Literally, the guy is an ex-boxer. And you might have known this, but he has a closer relationship with Karl Rove than most Democrats. (Or, at least, he did). The two men have even broken bread together. Anyway, we've read enough Nevada history to know what happens to folks when Harry Reid gets pissed off.
This threatens to spill from an inside baseball into a real test for both parties — and the President. If nothing intervenes, this could leave permanent marks and impact the President's second term in a major way. It might be good politics to attack Reid so personally, but it does not accord with the President's vow to restore civility. And we g-g-guarantee it won't help him with tax reform, on which he and the minority leader might have found some common ground.
We await a read-out from last night's White House dinner.
Tony Batt of the Las Vegas Review-Journal writes that Reid angrily denounced the attacks against him, Noting that among the points listed is a criticism against Reid's family for benefitting from lobbying — his son-in-law is a lobbyist. The White House, Batt writes, doesn't deny the similarities between the Daschle and Reid strategies |
