Is Harry Reid an abject failure as majority leader

[pscot]

or is he a wiley ring strategist, doing his best against a tough opponent? If you hate Reid this piece from Daily Kos may not change your mind, but it will definitely give you something to think about.


http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/20/43817/876

Politics and the Art of Blood Sports

by crystalboy
Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 01:40:53 PM PST
Much has been said about Harry Reid. He doesn't seem to be a fan favorite around here which is fair enough. His political style is mystifying to most and whether or not it will prove successful is an open question. People occasionally reference his time as a boxer. Usually it has to do with his toughness but I believe that there is much more to it than that. Few people know little more about the world of fighting arts than what they see on TV. I'd like to pull the curtain back a tiny bit to allow people some understanding of this world.

crystalboy's diary :: ::
Boxing is a little more sophisticated than people realize. True it's a blood sport but more than anything it is a strategic sport. Unlike most sports, a boxer truly pays for his mistakes. Perhaps the easiest ways to get knocked out is to come out flailing.

I've been involved with ring and cage sports on and off for nearly 40 years as a fighter, trainer, coach, cut man, second and judge. The majority of my work has been at the professional level. I've seen a lot.

Boxing isn't personal. Good fighters don't get mad...big mistake. Fighters usually have a great deal of respect for each other. I've often seen fighters work out between them what they're going to say at press conferences. The harsh words and posturing are for the fans benefit. Outside the ring they tend to be low key, respectful and overall decent people. They know what it's like to be hurt and humiliated.

A fight can be broken down into parts - early rounds, middle rounds and closing rounds. Early rounds are used to feel out the opponent. Find out how he responds to various circumstances, look for weaknesses.

The middle rounds are about establishing ring dominance, breaking the other fighter down and setting him up. A common set up is to allow the opponent to have success with a strategy or technique for which you have an effective counter, without showing the counter. This often leads to the opponent relying on the move. The opponent often becomes less cautious with it's success. Seeing a move repeatedly allows the fighter to time his counter.

In the closing rounds a fighter will attempt to cut off the ring, limit his opponents options and exploit various weaknesses and set ups. This stage of the fight is when most knockout occur.

Here's a few pointers. Protect your head, don't get beat up early, be patient, breath, relax and think.

One of the best fights I've seen was a Muay Thai fight that I judged. I'd seen both fighters many times. Both where excellent. Both had knocked out many opponents. The fight was very strategic. The crowd became restless because there where few shins to the head...no blood. I doubt many in the crowd even knew who was winning. By the third round I was hearing boos behind me. The winner fought the best fight of his life. He understood that his opponent had knockout power in his hands so he played defense up high while he destroyed the others legs with shins to the thigh and groin muscle. The crowd had no clue of the damage he had done. After the fight I talked to the looser and saw his legs. They where purple and swollen. My guess is that his femurs where bruised. Bone bruises are hell...

There's lots more. Subtle and thought-provoking. Highly recommended.

[debbierlus]

1. He is a wimp & not vested in the fight.

Sorry. Mr. Reid is a huge disappointment.

[pscot]

7. Try reading the diary

It may change your perspective.

[Warpy]

8. I've been hoping Clinton would do badly in the first few primaries

so she could take his place as Majority Leader.

She would be pure dynamite in that job.

[davidwparker]

2. he's a failure -- both as minority and majority leader.

[JDPriestly]

3. Harry Reid fights, but not for us.

[bdamomma]

4. Read this article, and see what Reid thinks about *

how would we really handle this nutcase in the WH???

even Reid can't work with *.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/washington/19reid.html?ex=1355720400&en=e18a3562087a2d70&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

just a snip from the article:


Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has called President Bush a loser and a liar and has referred to him derisively as King George. Mr. Reid has also apologized — but only, he likes to point out, for the “loser” line.

Mostly, Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada, calls the president “this guy,” as in an interview last week, when he said, “I am mystified, dumbfounded about how difficult it is to work with this guy.”

[fascisthunter]

5. He's a Con Pretending to Fight for us (nt)

[Purveyor]

6. And Pelosi certainly wasn't a "prize" either... eom

[pscot]

11. And so's your old man

:rofl:

I wasn't commenting on Pelosi. Try reading the diary. You might learn something. Or maybe not.

[Purveyor]

30. A word to the wise 'little one'. Interjecting ones family members, especially those long departed,

into your petty tantrums could very well get you 'knocked on your ass' should you do so in person.

With that advice, I'm finished with you.

Merry Christmas...btw.

[OzarkDem]

9. Rope A Dope isn't working

Reid's cheerleading squad should give it up.

[RiverStone]

10. abject failure! Dodd should be our new majority leader in 09!...n/t

[mmonk]

12. He's good at coming up with procedures, no matter how obscure,

that are within his capacity which makes him wiley. That being said, if he is for immunity for corporations illegally helping commit constitutional crimes, he is unfit for office.

[pscot]

14. The diarist talks about the FISA bill

He speculates that if Reid had brought up the Judiciary committee version enough Democrats would have deserted to prevent cloture. If he had then followed up with the Intelligence committee's version, it probably would have passed easily. Doddd's successful filibuster allowed Reid to table the bill, pulling the rug out from under the republicans, who still haven't quite figured out what just happened to them. They thought they had another gimme.

The whole diary is worth reading, and the comments are also very strong.

[mmonk]

16. I used the word if.

This will play out and we will know. If he allows immunity to go through, I think he should resign.

[OzarkDem]

22. Its about party discipline among Dems

Reid has failed to exercise his leadership to whip his caucus into supporting the Dem agenda. Using the excuse of failing to line up enough Dem votes is an admission of egregious failure. He should have exercised every form of party discipline to deliver his own caucus.

As soon as Bush saw Reid couldn't or wouldn't instill discipline, he knew he had a free pass. Complete and utter failure all the way around.

[pscot]

26. What? You expect him to waterboard DiFi

or Joementum? How do you keep Landrieu or the Nelson twins from sleeping with the enemy? Or your own Prior the lesser, who is about as useless as tits on a boar. If we could send the guy some real democrats to work with maybe he could get something done.

[OzarkDem]

31. He hasn't even tried

its obvious he only wants give Bush what he wants while making noises to mollify the Dem base.

Now that Dodd has shown some leadership and challenged him the DLC is threatened and attacking Dodd. Thanks, DLC, the same idiots who gave us Joe Lieberman and expect us to respect Harry Reid. No thanks.

[dkofos]

13. YES

[sinkingfeeling]

15. No. I think Reid, like most of the Democratic Senators, know a little bit more about how the Senate

works than some here.

[KoKo]

17. Bah Humbug......

[CatWoman]

23. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

:rofl:

[mmonk]

24. .

[shance]

18. Not to the cronies he represents.

n/t

[lovuian]

19. failure

and not foolin anybody

[kentuck]

20. I think Harry will probably be challenged for the leadership...

after the next election. From some reports, some Senators were not happy with his latest shellacking from Bush and the Repubs.

[pscot]

25. I haven't heard of any serious challenge to Reid

I think things are going to get better in the new year. The republicans facing re-election don't want to follow Bush over a cliff. And the Democrats owe Harry. For the last year, he has been the flak catcher on their behalf. Are they going to dump him so someone else can take credit as the situation improves? Besides, think how much worse off we would be if Daschle were still running things.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. He is a creature of a corrupt system. He does what the system demands.

As such, I expect nothing more of him.

[tom_paine]

27. This is an interesting article...subtle and thought-provoking

Unfortunately it doesn't say what a fighter, good, Meat, or Tomato Can, is to do when the refs are bought off and crooked, and the ring one-sidedly jacked up on stilts with our corner being at it's lowest point.

But all that aside, for the moment we will assume that doesn't exist. If the basic premise of this diary is true, it then stands to reason that we will eevntually see a proper counter...one which REALLY DAMAGES the foe.

To my mind, the "horseshoe in the boxing glove" for us is all the serial felonies performed by Bushies out in the open.

If the premise of the story is correct, then Alberto Gonzales' clear-cut multiple felony-perjuries, on video tape and contradicted by, among others, the Director of the FBI, was the foe sticking their chin out with no guard up to protect himself.

It was the perfect time, and perhaps the only so clear cut opportunity against a man then reviled by most of his own Party even. Hell, Alberto even went out and hired a criminal defense lawyer, not that he is going to need one, I think. And not because he is innocent, either.

So my point is, if indeed this is carefully planned "rope-a-dope" strategy, why did we miss the chance when the foe had their collective chins stuck out with no defense?

Why is Alberto Gonzales free and under little to no threat of prosecution? We had a chance to rock the Bushies' jaw in a way which could have done little damage to ourselves, he was so obviously guilty?

Where was the canny boxer's strategy there? OK, we waited for the right moment and now, when the foe's chin is stuck out we don't even throw a punch?

I want to believe this is true. I have wanted to all along because the alternative is too horrific to contemplate. But here is a spot where the assertions of the story break down. Why didn't we take the punch that was offered to us?

Why didn't we counterstrike and give our oppponent something to think about in the later rounds, i.e. the possibility that more people who shamelessly and openly committed felonies might be prosecuted for their crimes?

The story's premise seems to break down there, because we will probably never get another chance to land such a clean shot on an exposed Bushie chin again, especially now that Cheney has burnt all the evidence.

I wnat to believe that this thought-compelling article is true, but we don't even take the shots when they are presented to us like that, the same way we let the Bushie Media convince us to "be nice" at the 2004 convention.

Which they reciprocated at their 2004 convention...right...RIGHT?!?

[pscot]

28. Thank you

I'm so pleased that someone finally read the dammed thing. I don't even care if it's half-way accurate. At least it represents a way of framing the situation where the Democrats aren't just a bunch of losers. This is about framing. Perception is more than half the battle. Who knows, if enough people tell Reid what a brilliant strategist he is, maybe he'll start to believe it. Then other Democrats start to believe. Next thing you know the media pick it up, and the meme becomes "Uh Oh, what's Harry going to do to the republicans next?" Okay, I'm hallucinating, but hey, you gotta have a dream.

[tom_paine]

29. You're welcome. But yeah, you are hallucinating.

Next thing you know the media pick it up...

Whoa, dude, don't take the Brown Acid.

When has the MSM EVER used anything but the Bushie Frames they get e-mailed from Heritage, AEI and Olin?

Answer, never once in a dozen years, maybe more (I wasn't looking, before that).

That, too, is the 800-lb. gorilla in the ring with us, and is the basis of my analogy about the ring being jacked up on stilts so we have to wage our fight uphill.

It brings me to mind of something I heard in the run-up to the 2000 Coup. I was still, as most of us were I think, mostly clueless to the edifice of the Bushie Propaganda Machine, how it worked, how it laundered lies and obfuscated truth with squid-ink, and so forth.

Old Timmeh Russert, who I can't believe I ever thought was a liberal or was a part of the falsely claimed "liberal media" (propaganda works best on the unwitting, and I was that in the 90s, though I had begun to notice that SOMETHING had gone horribly wrong) was waxing wistfully and eloquently about how he got all his "best stuff" from Bushie Opposition Research. Oh, you should have heard him way back in 1999. You know what I mean, he was almost talking about them as if he had a man-crush on them, which he does.

Like Howard Beale and Arthur Jensen in the boardroom scene.

I have heard the voice of God.

You might be right about that, Mr. Beale.

Makes me wonder if Jack Welch didn't sit Timmeh down and give him the exact same speech.

Anyway, I couldn't believe my ears. A journalist (of which Timmeh most certainly is NOT one) should NEVER wax poetically about EITHER SIDE'S opposition research teams, let alone loudly and public proclaim them as a brilliant and even-handed source of information.

But that was before I realized the Old American Republic was dying, and all the burglar alarms were being disconnected from the Constitution to the Free Press, while we slept the sleep of the prosperous.

I can only say that I hope this article is correct, and that it's just another moment or two until the big counterpunch.

But, honestly, nothing I have seen in the last seven years that indicates that analogy is more apt than the German Social Democrats of 1933.