I’m not ‘zactly sure when it happened.
When the whole damn world got tipped upside down and folks stopped being sensible.
When it got to be more important to get what you wanted than it was to tell the truth.
But somehow, repetition has come to be the new veracity.
Saying what you needed to have people believe became more important that what was actually true.
It no longer matters what’s true, only what’s “said”.
Take Nevada’s own national embarrassment… Harry Reid.
Senate majority leader.
A senator since 1986, and a politician for some twenty years prior to that.
A man who rates a 70% from the ultra liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
A man who claims to have grown up with solid, western, Mormon values.
A man who you would think might recognize the difference ‘tween truth and fiction.
But you’d be thinkin’ wrong.
Yesterday, Ol’ Harry took to the Senate floor and spewed some of the vilest crap seen in many a decade, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics against healthcare reform employed against equal rights in the pre-Civil War era.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"
"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today" Reid said Monday.
‘Cept that it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
If ya know any history, it’s easy to question Harry’s curious reference to the Senate civil rights debates of the 1960s.
See, it was the Democrats who mounted an 83-day filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.
Not the Republicans.
And when the Senate finally voted to cut off debate on that Civil Rights bill, who was in opposition?
29 Senators, 80% of them Democrats.
Not, mostly, the Republicans.
Among those voting to block the civil rights bill was West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who personally filibustered the bill for 14 hours.
The next year he also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate, and indeed preceded Mr. Reid as his party's majority leader until he stepped down from that role in 1989.
And as far as anyone can tell, Byrd is still a Democrat.
But here’s the real issue for Ol’ Harry: No matter how much he wants to blame them, the Republicans cannot be blocking the healthcare bill for the simple reason that they lack the votes to block anything.
If Harry’s latest favorite bill is blocked, it will be because one or more of his very own Democrats won’t go along.
If his Democrats were unified, Harry would have nothing to lose by attacking Republicans
But with the votes of some his tribe in doubt, it would seem seriously risky of Reid to alienate possible converts like Olympia Snowe by likening her party to slavers.
His statement on the Senate floor yesterday was vintage Reid… inappropriate and stupid, without regard for either history or the truth.
But then Harry always was good at doing what he needed to do instead of what was right.
Hopefully, come next election, the good folks of Nevada will do what's right and send ol' Harry out to pasture... or better yet, take him out behind the woodshed and give him a good whippin' for tellin' tales.
Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis. --- Brad Holland.
