Can You Reid Me Now?

The Democratic Party, which has stood as a monolith since Inauguration Day 2009, has developed a crack... a fissure... a fault line! Schism and chaos threaten! And all because of... no, not anything substantive... the “Ground Zero mosque”, which is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque. And who should wander off the reservation but Senator Harry Reid. All of which goes to show that... nothing really ever changes. For these people are political animals; all their thoughts, hopes, and actions are aimed at one thing and one thing only: Their political survival, which means theirs personally and that of their party, and the nation and its citizens be damned.

I have already discussed Obama's “stance” on the issue (see “A Mosqued Ball”, Aug. 14). When it comes to Reid, all you have to know is that he's running for re-election in a somewhat conservative state. So his GZM position is naked pandering to the voters of his state, just as Obama's is naked pandering to his larger constituency... with some foreign policy advantages thrown in for good measure (and all subject to the advice and consent of Israel and its lobby, I can assure you). After all, does Obama want to be seen in the same light as all those “right-wing haters” out there – the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins of this world? I don't think so. But Reid has a slightly different agenda, namely to stay in Washington as long as possible, and if that involves seeming to join critics of the GZM, well... that's how it is in politics -- you swim in cesspools, you're going to wind up a bit soiled. Besides, by re-election time for Obama, this business will be totally forgotten, one way or the other – the “mosque” will either be under construction or it won't, but the media will have long since moved on, which means the American public will have as well. (When's the last time a story left the media but stayed on the public's mind? I can't think of a single case. And that's because there is no such thing as “the public's mind”, or even “public opinion”. It's all a house of mirrors with the media as the largest image in the largest mirror.)

I suspect there will be plenty more cases just like Reid's – and not because Democrats have wandered off the reservation, but because they are doing what any good politician does, namely looking out for Number One. Too bad their ideas are a pile of Number Two...