OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
If pollsters are to be believed, Democrats nationwide do not have much to look forward to in next week’s elections. There is, however, a silver lining that stands to benefit the party and liberal-leaning voters everywhere in ways that far outweigh the anguish they might suffer on Election Day.
Poised to lose control of the Senate and give up even more seats in the House, Democrats in Congress will have no choice but to finally dump House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. This is good news for Democrats and any serious voters who consider themselves “progressives.”
For too long, Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi have held these Democratic voters hostage by their impossibly clownish behavior whose zany public comments and outlandish political views place them far, far outside any political norm on the left or the right. In short, Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid have been not just an embarrassment to America, but dangerous and distracting liabilities to Democrats in Congress and the voters back home they are supposed to serve.
For years, reporters covering these two leaders have had to willingly suspend disbelief and divorce themselves from any strain of reality just to pretend to take Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi seriously. During regular press briefings, both Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi are prone to eye-popping blank stares, bizarre gesticulations, incoherent babbling, wooden posture and sudden reversals of plain logic. Sometimes they will just prattle on about perfect nonsense that nobody understands. But it is so common that reporters just roll their eyes or exchange brief glances and move on.
Literally, if someone were to wheel in a couple of doddering dementia patients from the local hooty-hooty and set them up to speak on behalf of Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi, nobody would notice any difference.
Everyone remembers Mrs. Pelosi’s famous exhortation to pass the hastily-slapped-together Obamacare bill — so that lawmakers and the public could find out what is in the bill.
And her dark warning to pass another hot disaster: “Every week we don’t pass a stimulus package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”
This isn’t just your routine out-of-touch mental numbness of a 25-year incumbent. This is real idiocy, pure lunacy.
And then there is Mr. Reid, who is so deeply unpopular back home, you have to wonder if voters don’t keep electing him just to keep him out of Nevada.
This is a man who on a roughly $200,000 annual government salary lives in a condo in the Ritz-Carlton when he is in Washington. And when he opens his mouth, he complains about the sweaty, smelly tourists traipsing through the Capitol.
“In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol,” he said by way of explaining why taxpayers needed to shell out $600 million to build an underground addition to the Capitol to keep the sweaty, smelly tourists at bay.
These would be the same sweaty, smelly tourists who pay Mr. Reid’s salary and own the very Capitol where in he holds forth so nonsensically.
The buffoonery of Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi is enough to make former President George W. Bush sound like a Rhodes Scholar and Secretary of State John Kerry an eloquent statesman. But the consequences are much more serious than the endless comic loops of Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi blooper tapes.
All the clownishness deeply undermines American people’s belief in our system of governance.
How can people this ridiculous be taken seriously? Under what circumstances are people like this placed in positions of authority? How are they in charge off all the taxes we pay?
It is a question many voters in both parties are asking. It is why you see so many Democrats desperately racing to distance themselves from not just President Obama, but also Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi.
Hopefully, for the good of America and the Democratic Party, this will be the last election these two particular leaders will have to be so roundly denounced.
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com, or on Twitter at @charleshurt.
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