By SHERMAN FREDERICK
By SHERMAN FREDERICK
Stephens Media
Don’t overcomplicate Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.
Although that’s what America’s political pundit class did after Sen. Reid’s latest off-the-wall behavior, it’s an understandable occupational hazard. Pundits pride themselves on figuring out what’s really going on with newsmakers.
But here’s the difficulty when it comes to Sen. Reid: The weirder his behavior, the harder pundits must stretch reason to explain his peculiarity.
The background is this: Harry said a guy phoned his office to rat on Mitt Romney. Reid took the call and immediately took it to the press.
“(Romney) didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Harry said the man told him.
Reid breathlessly added: “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain. But obviously (Romney) can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”
Even for Reid, that’s pretty far out there. Everyone in the fair-minded universe vilified Reid for doing it. Rumormonger. Liar. McCarthyist. And those descriptions came from his ideological friends. Comedian Jon Stewart called Sen. Reid “a terrible person.”
The Pulitzer Prize winning website Politifact.com put Reid’s claims to the Truth-o-Meter test and concluded his accusation was “pants on fire” false. Even liberal columnists like The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, the website noted, took Reid to task.
“Spew first and sweat the details later, or never. Speak loosely and carry a stick-thin collection of backup materials, or none at all. That’s the M.O. of the moment, familiar from the past but in particularly galling and profuse flower of late.”
The snarky Internet crowd spoofed Reid’s crazy burden of proof, saying Sen. Reid’s pasty face reminds them of a pederast, so, using Reid’s own standard, it’s OK to report he may be one. One blogger even called up Reid’s office and asked on the record whether the senator was, in fact, a pederast. The spokesman said: “Cute.”
Then came serious pundits who, as they are wont to do, tried hard to find some kind of Machiavellian chess move in this Reidism — perhaps a diabolical, double-secret probation plot for Team Obama. That’s the genius of Sen. Reid, pundits purred to one another. Harry has the gift of saying things others only wish they could say. That’s how he rolls. He’s a practitioner of the dark arts of politics, willing to take one for the team.
Dark arts? Gift? Genius? Sen. Harry Reid? C’mon, man. There’s no chicken salad in this chicken excrement move. If Reid is taking one for the Obama team, he’s taking Nolan Ryan fastballs to the face. This kind of jerk statement has become par for the course for Reid. It makes Nevadans who know him best wince, for he is neither a smooth operator, nor some kind of political Forrest Gump.
Remember when Reid described Barack Obama, on the record, as a good presidential candidate because he is “light skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”?
That’s not smooth. That’s not what most Americans think secretly. That’s Harry Reid demonstrating one of a thousand all-world, brain-fart moments that have created his embarrassing legacy.
As for Harry Reid being a master political tactician? Please. He’s only a tool, increasingly isolated from decency and credibility by his own acts. For national pundits struggling to explain Harry Reid, try J.R.R. Tolkien’s character Smeagol. The lust to hold power doesn’t always transform creatures for the better.
Sherman Frederick is the former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.