Dems Have the Bit In Their Teeth

I have often called Harry Reid the "creature" of Nancy Pelosi. He has certainly echoed her sentiments concerning Executive involvement in Congress. However, I would point out that it also seems he is maintaining a decent standard right now in terms of seating the new Senate, and mediating the disputes surrounding Roland Burris and Al Franken. More than once he has cautioned Congressional Democrats not to "over-reach" and his relatively neutral stance on two contested Democratic seats eases some of my concerns about his partisanship. This is in direct contrast to Nancy Pelosi's false claims of governing from the middle. Maybe she means the middle of the Democratic caucus, because she is certainly pushing House Republicans to the back of the bus. It appears that Harry Reid, in cooperation with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is working to realign the Senate committees in strong favor of the Democratic caucus, but not orchestrating a full tilt GOP shut-out, like what seems to be happening over on the south side of the capitol. The rules changes that Pelosi is supporting would also abolish House committee term limits, essentially making committee appointments "for life." So democratic.

It seems the one thing all sides of the aisle and the capitol are willing to come to the table for is economic stimulus, which Pelosi is aggressively pushing to a vote by February. It seems that the GOP is on board so long as tax relief and state-level bailouts are included in the package. As I warned in an earlier post, Nancy Pelosi likes to write checks and pretty soon it will be blank ones -- for Congressional careers and for government spending, and now President-elect Obama is already lowering expectations on controlling spending, announcing that a multi-trillion dollar debt could last for years, which is being peddled as a good idea. In light of the Democratic takeover that is unfolding in Congress, the GOP held a meeting of the six contenders for the RNC chairmanship that drew an unprecedented standing-room-only crowd yesterday. Hopefully the GOP has taken the sink-or-swim message from voters; as I have said many times, no one party should control government in total.