As Democrats struggle toward a bulletproof majority (pace Norm Coleman), their impotence to get together and legislate or even confirm White House appointees underscores once again the fact that their Senate Majority Leader is no Lyndon Johnson.
"Nothing is simple if you’re Harry Reid," Gail Collins writes in her New York Times column today, citing his loss of 27 Democrats on a credit-card reform bill to an amendment allowing tourists to carry guns in national parks among a string of other ineptitudes during what the Republicans like to call "one-party rule."
Two years ago the dean of political columnists, David Broder of the Washington Post, labeled him the Democrats' Alberto Gonzales, "a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance," and with Obama in the White House, Reid's leadership skills have not noticeably improved.
Now Collins reviews his inability to get the President's choices, including his own Legal Counsel, confirmed "in a place that holds one important aspect of credit card reform is giving people the ability to pack a handgun at the Grand Canyon."
The Senate may have more than its share of clowns, but Reid is a dismal choice for ringmaster. Even in his barely populated home state of Nevada, the Majority Leader has ratings so low that, almost two years before he has face voters in 2010, his campaign has been grabbing for coattails by announcing that President Obama will headline a fundraiser for him later this month.
As Collins points out: "Ted Kennedy is sick and Robert Byrd is 91 and it’s a miracle some of the other ones can find their way to the Capitol. Even if you eventually get all 60 Democratic votes in the same room, how do you get them to do the same thing? You will remember that when Specter came over, Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska instantly said: 'They might have a 60-member majority. That doesn’t mean they have 60 votes.' Reid must have found the point Nelson was making less chilling than the fact that the senator kept referring to his own party as 'they.'"
Is Harry Reid who has been, as Broder notes, "assuredly not a man who misses many opportunities to put his foot in his mouth," the best crew chief for this fractious gang at a time when the President, and the country, need all the leadership they can get?
Showing posts with label Gail Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gail Collins. Show all posts
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Second Thoughts for Caroline Kennedy
Just when things were going well on her upstate tour comes the word that Harry Reid has been lobbying Gov. David Paterson to name Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
Being backed a Majority Leader who can't get anything done is yet another obstacle for JFK's daughter, following the news that Al Sharpton is supporting her.
The usually publicity-shy Sharpton has sent the media an unsolicited statement announcing she had called him about the position and, with double-negative grandeur, he felt "compelled to state that I unequivocally disagree with those that say she is not qualified and could not bring needed leadership to this state and country."
Sharpton also disclosed he has "invited Ms. Kennedy to dine with me at Sylvia's this week in Harlem and reminded her that I took Sen. Obama there during his campaign so it's a good luck stop since he did all right."
If consorting with the likes of Reid and Sharpton is not enough to give Caroline Kennedy pause, Gail Collins asks "how much of her life does she really want to spend at fund-raisers for people she suspects will be indicted before they have a chance to cash the checks? How does she feel about admiring butter sculptures at state fairs?"
As if all this were not enough for second thoughts, has she really thought about what it would be like to have Chuck Schumer for a mentor yakking at her for hours at a time?
In her father's immortal words, how much is too much to "ask what you can do for your country."
Being backed a Majority Leader who can't get anything done is yet another obstacle for JFK's daughter, following the news that Al Sharpton is supporting her.
The usually publicity-shy Sharpton has sent the media an unsolicited statement announcing she had called him about the position and, with double-negative grandeur, he felt "compelled to state that I unequivocally disagree with those that say she is not qualified and could not bring needed leadership to this state and country."
Sharpton also disclosed he has "invited Ms. Kennedy to dine with me at Sylvia's this week in Harlem and reminded her that I took Sen. Obama there during his campaign so it's a good luck stop since he did all right."
If consorting with the likes of Reid and Sharpton is not enough to give Caroline Kennedy pause, Gail Collins asks "how much of her life does she really want to spend at fund-raisers for people she suspects will be indicted before they have a chance to cash the checks? How does she feel about admiring butter sculptures at state fairs?"
As if all this were not enough for second thoughts, has she really thought about what it would be like to have Chuck Schumer for a mentor yakking at her for hours at a time?
In her father's immortal words, how much is too much to "ask what you can do for your country."
Thursday, June 05, 2008
A Platoon of Coaches for McCain
Of all the contrasts between the two presidential candidates--political philosophy, age, race--the most glaring, as we saw this week, may be rhetorical.
Barack Obama is a masterful public speaker. John McCain, to put it kindly, is not.
Describing him as "a guy who has never really learned how to read a teleprompter," Gail Collins parses McCain's Tuesday night performance:
“'I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought into so many failed ideas,'” McCain said. Pause. Smile. McCain has only a couple of versions of smile. And for speeches, he tends to employ a kind of scary, humorless teeth-baring.
“'He doesn’t trust us to make decisions for ourselves and wants the government to make them for us. And that’s not change we can believe in.' Pause. Smile. It was Pavlovian, really, as if some handler had run McCain through his paces over and over, administering an electric shock each time he ended a sentence without revealing his dental work."
That is certainly why McCain's campaign has challenged Obama to appear with him at town-hall meetings, a venue in which their man can use the kind of ease and charm he was been displaying for years on the Daily Show in interviews with Jon Stewart. But even if Obama accepts, that won't, to use a hallowed Republican phrase, be a cakewalk either.
Half a century ago, when presidents started appearing on TV, Dwight Eisenhower's campaign hired the movie actor-director Robert Montgomery to coach the former General into acting like good old friendly relaxed Ike. It worked.
Since then, Washington has been overrun by media trainers to teach politicians how to maintain eye contact, use the right gestures and fake looking natural. The McCain people could use a platoon of them.
Barack Obama is a masterful public speaker. John McCain, to put it kindly, is not.
Describing him as "a guy who has never really learned how to read a teleprompter," Gail Collins parses McCain's Tuesday night performance:
“'I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought into so many failed ideas,'” McCain said. Pause. Smile. McCain has only a couple of versions of smile. And for speeches, he tends to employ a kind of scary, humorless teeth-baring.
“'He doesn’t trust us to make decisions for ourselves and wants the government to make them for us. And that’s not change we can believe in.' Pause. Smile. It was Pavlovian, really, as if some handler had run McCain through his paces over and over, administering an electric shock each time he ended a sentence without revealing his dental work."
That is certainly why McCain's campaign has challenged Obama to appear with him at town-hall meetings, a venue in which their man can use the kind of ease and charm he was been displaying for years on the Daily Show in interviews with Jon Stewart. But even if Obama accepts, that won't, to use a hallowed Republican phrase, be a cakewalk either.
Half a century ago, when presidents started appearing on TV, Dwight Eisenhower's campaign hired the movie actor-director Robert Montgomery to coach the former General into acting like good old friendly relaxed Ike. It worked.
Since then, Washington has been overrun by media trainers to teach politicians how to maintain eye contact, use the right gestures and fake looking natural. The McCain people could use a platoon of them.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Funny Thing About Global Warming...
Those who worry about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other wonky Al Gore stuff should lighten up. President Bush is on the case. He held a Rose Garden press conference this week and reassured us, “I’m pleased to say that we remain on track to meet this goal."
For the scientifically challenged, Gail Collins explains it all today in the New York Times:
"Suppose that two years after taking office, George W. Bush discovered that because of the stress of his job, he had gained 40 pounds and was tipping the scales at 220.
"The real-world Bush would immediately barricade himself in the White House gym, refusing all human contact or nourishment until the issue was resolved. But imagine that he regarded getting fat as seriously as he regards melting glaciers, rising oceans and drought and starvation around the planet. In that case, he would set a serious, management-type goal--of, say, an 18 percent reduction in the rate at which he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next decade.
"Cut to the Rose Garden in 2008 where partial victory is declared.'Over the past seven years, my administration has taken a rational, balanced approach to these serious challenges,' the 332-pound chief executive announces. He delivers this good news sitting down.
"2012: Bush hits his final goal and 400 pounds at approximately the same time."
Of course, Bush won't be in office then, but it’s the principle that counts, so we can start breathing easier.
For the scientifically challenged, Gail Collins explains it all today in the New York Times:
"Suppose that two years after taking office, George W. Bush discovered that because of the stress of his job, he had gained 40 pounds and was tipping the scales at 220.
"The real-world Bush would immediately barricade himself in the White House gym, refusing all human contact or nourishment until the issue was resolved. But imagine that he regarded getting fat as seriously as he regards melting glaciers, rising oceans and drought and starvation around the planet. In that case, he would set a serious, management-type goal--of, say, an 18 percent reduction in the rate at which he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next decade.
"Cut to the Rose Garden in 2008 where partial victory is declared.'Over the past seven years, my administration has taken a rational, balanced approach to these serious challenges,' the 332-pound chief executive announces. He delivers this good news sitting down.
"2012: Bush hits his final goal and 400 pounds at approximately the same time."
Of course, Bush won't be in office then, but it’s the principle that counts, so we can start breathing easier.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Laughing It Off
As David Brooks blogs that "issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall," Gail Collins, bless her, provides the best tonic for the general dismay about last night's debate.
In her New York Times column, she writes:
"I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, people. You were all excited about this election and now you feel like someone who got all dressed up for a great event and wound up at a B-list party with a cash bar. You never want to hear the words 'bitter' or 'Bosnia' again. And the only political story that you’ve really enjoyed lately is the one about Cindy McCain’s list of favorite recipes being cribbed from The Food Network...
"The problem with primaries is that without real policy disagreements, if you want to prove you’re better than your opponent it has to get personal. Barack and Hillary are dying to take on John McCain. They can’t wait to fight with somebody who thinks Iraq is a good idea.
"In a great debate breakthrough, Hillary said she thought that while she was the best candidate, Barack could beat the Republicans, too: 'Yes, yes, yes.' This is definitely a new conclusion on the part of the Clinton campaign, arrived at under extreme duress and the presence of network TV cameras, but the Democrats can use all the amity they can get.
"Five more days and then it’s on to the next primary. Let’s try not to say anything insulting about Guam."
And stay away from networks that treat a presidential campaign as a grade-school food fight.
In her New York Times column, she writes:
"I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, people. You were all excited about this election and now you feel like someone who got all dressed up for a great event and wound up at a B-list party with a cash bar. You never want to hear the words 'bitter' or 'Bosnia' again. And the only political story that you’ve really enjoyed lately is the one about Cindy McCain’s list of favorite recipes being cribbed from The Food Network...
"The problem with primaries is that without real policy disagreements, if you want to prove you’re better than your opponent it has to get personal. Barack and Hillary are dying to take on John McCain. They can’t wait to fight with somebody who thinks Iraq is a good idea.
"In a great debate breakthrough, Hillary said she thought that while she was the best candidate, Barack could beat the Republicans, too: 'Yes, yes, yes.' This is definitely a new conclusion on the part of the Clinton campaign, arrived at under extreme duress and the presence of network TV cameras, but the Democrats can use all the amity they can get.
"Five more days and then it’s on to the next primary. Let’s try not to say anything insulting about Guam."
And stay away from networks that treat a presidential campaign as a grade-school food fight.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Irish Eyes
After President Kennedy was killed in 1963, Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart."
Growing up in the Bronx of the 1930s, almost everyone I knew was Jewish. In our apartment building, there was one Irish family whose men sat on the front steps in summer, drinking beer and joking. As the evening went on, their smiles got wider, their talk louder. They seemed to be breathing some other air. They were as poor as the rest of us, but so full of life.
As a young man in Manhattan of the 1950s, I would go after work to Costello's, a saloon where you could breathe that "other air" with writers, editors and artists, a place John McNulty had made famous in the New Yorker. Pat Moynihan was sometimes there, wearing an outdated straw boater, but no one seemed to think it odd.
Tim Costello was our Irish godfather, keeping us happy but grounded and civil. When Frank McCourt, who later wrote "Angela's Ashes," came over as an 18-year-old immigrant, Tim sent him to the New York Public Library to read Samuel Johnson.
It was Tim's policy to help the poor but never to buy drinks for anyone who could afford to pay for his own. When someone at my bachelor party told me he was coming and bringing a case, I said that, if so, a lawyer would be handling it. Tim came, empty-handed, but his presence was honor enough.
Over the years my life has been entwined with colleagues, friends and relatives by marriage who have leavened my Jewish gloom with Irish wit and cheer, so here's a St. Patrick Day's toast to Tim Costello et al, along with a new generation of Irish-American writers of all political persuasions--Peggy Noonan, Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, Andrew Sullivan, P.J. O'Rourke and more--who are helping keep us sane as George W. Bush breaks our hearts.
Cheers to all.
Growing up in the Bronx of the 1930s, almost everyone I knew was Jewish. In our apartment building, there was one Irish family whose men sat on the front steps in summer, drinking beer and joking. As the evening went on, their smiles got wider, their talk louder. They seemed to be breathing some other air. They were as poor as the rest of us, but so full of life.
As a young man in Manhattan of the 1950s, I would go after work to Costello's, a saloon where you could breathe that "other air" with writers, editors and artists, a place John McNulty had made famous in the New Yorker. Pat Moynihan was sometimes there, wearing an outdated straw boater, but no one seemed to think it odd.
Tim Costello was our Irish godfather, keeping us happy but grounded and civil. When Frank McCourt, who later wrote "Angela's Ashes," came over as an 18-year-old immigrant, Tim sent him to the New York Public Library to read Samuel Johnson.
It was Tim's policy to help the poor but never to buy drinks for anyone who could afford to pay for his own. When someone at my bachelor party told me he was coming and bringing a case, I said that, if so, a lawyer would be handling it. Tim came, empty-handed, but his presence was honor enough.
Over the years my life has been entwined with colleagues, friends and relatives by marriage who have leavened my Jewish gloom with Irish wit and cheer, so here's a St. Patrick Day's toast to Tim Costello et al, along with a new generation of Irish-American writers of all political persuasions--Peggy Noonan, Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, Andrew Sullivan, P.J. O'Rourke and more--who are helping keep us sane as George W. Bush breaks our hearts.
Cheers to all.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Ultimate Triumph of George W. Bush
He set out to show that government is useless, expensive and stupid, and in the waning days of his Presidency, the man is proving it beyond all doubt.
Forget Katrina, the war in Iraq, the violation of individual rights--misadventures that might have happened to any brain-dead President--but now our lame duck is giving us his "What, Me Worry?" grin as the economy crumbles around our ears. A catastrophic Bush Depression would be the final gift to his government-hating supporters.
Watching the leader of the Free World address the Economic Club of New York yesterday, Gail Collins muses that "you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.
"We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.
"The country that elected George Bush--sort of--because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend."
Home prices are plummeting, foreclosures are soaring, the Fed pumps billions into propping up Bear Stearns and his Treasury Secretary belatedly starts talking about overseeing cowboy mortgage lenders, but the President is sure that our country is still "the economic envy of the world" and that "sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May" will cure it all.
But then again, why worry? He probably owns the ranch in Crawford free and clear.
Forget Katrina, the war in Iraq, the violation of individual rights--misadventures that might have happened to any brain-dead President--but now our lame duck is giving us his "What, Me Worry?" grin as the economy crumbles around our ears. A catastrophic Bush Depression would be the final gift to his government-hating supporters.
Watching the leader of the Free World address the Economic Club of New York yesterday, Gail Collins muses that "you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.
"We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.
"The country that elected George Bush--sort of--because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend."
Home prices are plummeting, foreclosures are soaring, the Fed pumps billions into propping up Bear Stearns and his Treasury Secretary belatedly starts talking about overseeing cowboy mortgage lenders, but the President is sure that our country is still "the economic envy of the world" and that "sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May" will cure it all.
But then again, why worry? He probably owns the ranch in Crawford free and clear.
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