Word: reided
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With unemployment at nearly 10% nationwide, the Senate voted 70 to 28 in favor of a $15 billion bill to help create jobs. While it's a victory for Senate Democrats--particularly majority leader Harry Reid, who scrapped a bipartisan draft earlier this month--the bill still has to pass the House or be reconciled with the lower chamber's $154 billion version, approved in December. Reid hopes to push through a series of small jobs-related bills like this one, which includes temporary tax breaks for companies hiring employees and support for highway-construction programs...
...would regularly cross his party's congressional wing when he thought they were dead wrong. And Obama, like Bush, has lashed himself many times over to the political fortunes of the Capitol Hill portion of his party, allowing the agenda and vision of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, majority leader Harry Reid and a covey of mostly liberal committee chairs to define the public image of the Democratic Party and determine what his Administration can accomplish...
...wait a minute. That didn't happen. Reid did make a statement; it was filled with platitudes, anchored by an emotional anecdote. It was the sort of statement that seemed old a year ago, when the health care reform death march began. It did nothing to advance the negotiations, or to discomfort the Republicans. It followed a very similar statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was followed by a raft of near identical statements by the other Democrats - almost all of them sclerotic committee chairs with far more seniority than debating skill. They produced a Woodstock of heart-tugging...
...favorite moment in Barack Obama's recent health care summit came when Senate majority leader Harry Reid surgically exposed the emptiness of a key Republican debating point, using the classic political tactic of jujitsu: he allowed the force of the opposition's argument to carry it into the abyss. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, an obstetrician, had delivered a passionate - and seemingly well-informed - statement about the need for medical-malpractice reform. "O.K., Senator, you win," Reid responded. "Look, we Democrats don't see malpractice the same way you do. Our traditional supporters among the trial lawyers hate...
...insidious cleverness of the Republican blocking strategy demanded a more precise Democratic response. It demanded more forceful leadership from the President, to be sure. It demanded a brisk, disciplined legislative process. But that seems well beyond the capacity of the current Democratic leaders. The most egregious example was Reid allowing Baucus to dawdle for three months, attempting to cut a deal with the Republicans on the Finance Committee, during which time support for the bill curdled as Tea Party Summer unfolded. The Democrats also allowed their own special interests - the lawyers, the labor unions - as well as individual members...