Will Rogers never met Harry Reid

To this day whenever I hear the name Harry Reid, I firmly recall Dennis Miller's verbal savaging of the U.S. Senator from Nevada in the summer of 2007.





Outside of President Barack Obama, there's no other leftist politician whom I have blogged about more frequently than Reid.

Given Friday's announcement from the Senate Minority Leader, I won't have the U.S. Senate's most hack-tastic member to kick around for much longer as Reid will not seek reelection in 2016.

While not totally unexpected, his decision to forgo what would have been a difficult race still shook the Capitol on Friday and represented the first major transition in the Democratic leadership of the Senate or House in years. He endorsed Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York to succeed him in 2017.

Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s midterm elections.

If there's one lasting impression I have of Reid it would be his borderline dictatorial behavior. He would often take to the Senate floor and call out individual U.S. citizens who had the audacity to use their First Amendment rights to say things diametrically opposed to Reid's beliefs. Whether it was conservative radio titan Rush Limbaugh or the Koch brothers, it wasn't beyond Reid to demand they be reprimanded for their conduct or flat out call them "Un-American" during a speech.

Heck, even regular everyday Americans didn't escape Reid's ire. How about when folks were sharing their health insurance difficulties which occurred upon the implementation of Obamacare. Reid essentially called them liars.

Reid was also one of the more manipulative politicians as well (hardly a novel concept, I realize). Remember in the spring of 2009 when Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter switched to the Democrat party, thus giving the Dems a super majority of 60 senators? In exchange for such a move, Reid promised Specter advanced seniority when it came to committee positions. Reid reneged.

Honestly, there's myriad more examples of Reid's insufferable hackery I could go through. And while Reid moving on from politics is a good thing for discourse, the prospect of Sen. Schumer becoming the new Dem leader doesn't exactly elicit a rosy picture.

The fight never ends.

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