How much does it matter that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell absolutely hate each other? I mean, what if they were replaced by, say, Chuck Schumer and John Cornyn? Or Dick Durbin and John Thune?
How much would really change? I mean, I get that personal acrimony isn’t helpful, but I just don’t get the feeling that Senate dysfunction is best explained by a clash of personalities. I think Durbin and Thune could probably get along pretty well for a while, but if all Thune did was block everything and offer an infinite number of poison amendments then Durbin would begin to hate him fairly quickly. Don’t you think?
I saw some version of this story on Yahoo – that the Senate is so dysfunctional because of a “war” between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. I could only shake my head in disbelief. It’s not a war when one side throws Molotov cocktails and the other side is busy putting out fires. We have the worst media in the world (for an alleged Democracy).
Obama should have used his bully pulpit to solve this. A good strong speech was what was needed, and what did he give us? The same ‘ol establishment positions as Bush.
If only we could elect a decent democrat to solve this. It’s easy to pick out the ‘decent’ ones, because they agree with me on …..every……single……issue,
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Given what Yertle the Turtle said before Obama was inaugurated, Reid could have solved this once and for all. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. And it would have cut HolyJoe off at the knees.
Have you been talking with Davis X?
They have it backwards. (big surprise!)
I was under the impression that Harry Reid hates McConnell because McConnell made some promise to Reid and then went back on his word.
So the whole thing started BECAUSE there is no comity in the senate any longer, because Republicans are behaving the opposite of “country first”.
Stupid, stupid journalists.
Well, in real life a person works with others that he or she doesn’t necessarily like on a personal level in order to get things accomplished. I guess it’s the Heathers doing this analysis
It’s the Beltway media. Think the Heathers, sixty years on, bitter, and with a drinking problem.
If the idea is that Harry Reid hates Mitch McConnell, so Mitch McConnell decided to do everything in his power to make Harry Reid completely and totally ineffective, to the point of making the most basic business of the Senate virtually impossible, that’s pretty stupid. I’m pretty sure cause and effect goes the other way…
In our deeply unserious, failing nation this is what passes for “analysis” and “explanation” by the useless corporate media. Thus, it’s never a structural failing, or a systemic problem or (certainly) not the fault of a strategic decision made by one party. Nope, both leaders/sides “hate” each other! That’s the only problemo! Remember the high paid pundit idiocy of Obama “just needin’ to have a drink with McConnell to get things movin'”? Same boobery.
As all here know, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit who exactly “led” the senate Repub paralysis and filibuster mission—it happened to be Addison M. McConnell, but whomever the Repub leader was would have been required to implement the “block everything” strategy Repubs (including McConnell) elected to undertake in Jan 09. McConnell happened to be the general in the chair at the time.
The bigger issue of course is that the structure of the senate, its “system”, permitted the almost inconceivable abuse the Repubs pulled to thwart the election and paralyze the gub’mint, forcing Reid ultimately to be the villain who had no choice but to blow up (in a limited way and after Repubs’ abusive tactic had already succeeded) the beloved Olde Tyme Senate. And of course the massive structural problem still exists for 90% of senate business.
Mitch and Harry hate each other? Well, good. Who cares? I suppose it might be interesting from a human perspective (to the extent we can describe these senate egomaniacs thusly) whether Reid came to hate McConnell because of the Repub paralysis strategy of 2009 or whether he already hated him in, say, 1998. But ultimately, who cares if these two long serving tacticians ever “liked” each other?
I was told years ago by a professional journalist that it is SOP when reporting on any issue, to “personalize” it, that is, portray it as a conflict between two opposing personalities. Because this brings out the “human interest”. So remember, folks, the distortion of reality is an unavoidable byproduct of good journalism. (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.)
except by now I don’t think they know how to see it any other way
Shorter BooMan: Get rid of the filibuster.