The Boxer
January 7th, 2009 18:19

I am just a poor boy, though my story is seldom told.
I have squandered my resistance,
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises.
All lies and jest.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest . . .

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down,
Or cut him ’til he cried out in his anger and his shame,
“I am leaving, I am leaving.”
But the fighter still remains.

Lie-la-lie …

Who knew that Paul Simon was talking about Senator Harry Reid, our former pugilist turned Majority Leader? For heaven’s sake, Harry pick your fights better. This fight over Roland Burris is over. Behind on points and cut about the eye, it’s a TKO in the second round.

Jane Hamsher has the rest of this sad tale over at Firedoglake.

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Posted in Politics, United States by Charles Lemos
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DandyTiger
January 7th, 2009 22:49

Two lightly trained boxers battled, Reid with only a little training in his youth vs. Blago who it would seem had more extensive golden glove boxing training complete with golden glove fights.

It was quite a brilliant strategy on Blago’s part really. Pick a well experienced, above board AA to be Senator and dare anyone to not accept him. If he’s rejected, Blago gets to say it’s racism among other things. If he’s accepted, he gets to say, see, I’m still the Governor. Either way all the focus is on the Senate seat choice and the issues around it, and no longer about Blago himself. Simply brilliant. The worst thing for Blago would have been if the choice were immediately accepted and focus was put right back on Blago.

Reid made a stunningly bad political move that couldn’t possibly win. He barred the doors of a legally selected Senator who would be the only AA member of the Senate. Any good politician should have seen the bad PR in this from a mile away. Not only that, but in previous discussions between Reid and Blago, Reid had rejected every single AA candidate Blago brought up. Stunning.

In the end, Blago is like David to Goliath, defending the person who would be the only AA member of the Senate from at worst the evil bigoted Democrats, and at best the pathetic, petty, ignorant Democrats. And now the Dems, esp. Reid are limping back licking their wounds, and trying to save face by dragging this out even longer pretending there are some legal technicalities (of which no one agrees are issues at all). And to top it off, today he made the big, defiant announcement that he doesn’t work for Obama (to questions about how Obama is now seemingly for Burris being seated).

I think Reid has irreparably damaged is position. He looks pathetic and weak. He has dragged this out and distracted the party. And he has now fired a shot over the bow at Obama. It’s hard to imagine this being handled any worse.

fjoinkay
January 8th, 2009 06:44

President-elect Obama missed the boat on this one too, and is it clear who led the opposition to Burris- Obama or Reid?

Either way I am reminded of my major concern about the Democratic Party- where is the leadership? If I truly spent a couple of days thinking about and defining leadership I bet I would struggle mightily to make a list of 10 Democrats in our nations’ capitol who fit the bill.

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