Almost as much as Harry Reid hates working for a living, apparently: the word is out that he’s going to take all that legislation that the Democrats didn’t bother working on when they had a mere 59/41 Senate majority and make Congress work on it over Christmas break… when the Democrats will have a 58/42 majority. He is also blaming this on the Republican party, of course… mostly because Reid is too lazy to come up with even a semi-plausible excuse. Or possibly too contemptuous of the whole process; I don’t think that we’ve ever had a Senate Majority Leader who visibly enjoys the job less than Harry Reid does. Why he kept the position is beyond me: he clearly hates it, and he’s not very good at it, and nobody really is better off for Reid keeping it. It’s a mystery, really.
Anyway, Congressional staffers are no doubt even now calling their relatives and loved ones to tell them that, well, maybe they won’t be home for Christmas after all. I’m reserving all my sympathies for the Republicans caught up in this last act of petulance of the 111th Congress, of course – but I’d like to remind the Democrats likewise in a vise on this one that it’s their own blessed fault, or more accurately, the fault of their various bosses. After all, if a majority of Democratic legislators had had the guts to throw out the leadership that led them en masse into a wood chipper this November then maybe more of said legislators’ employees would actually get to go home for the holidays…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
“…nobody really is better off for Reid keeping it.” After Daschle’s defeat, it was deemed to be a lightning rod kind of job. In fact, it was given to Reid mostly because he wasn’t very colorful and his seat was deemed at the time to be “very safe”. I think that now, with all the heat on the Dems, no one really wants the job too badly (contrary to whatever noises/rumors/whispers that abound).