- Sunday, April 5, 2015

Harry Reid’s decision to retire after 32 years in the House and Senate, 10 of them as the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, is good news not only for Republicans, but also for everyone else saddened by the deterioration of political rhetoric.

“Politics ain’t beanbag,” as Mr. Dooley said, and good advice it is, but Mr. Reid practiced unsubstantiated personal attacks and guilt by association that would make Joe McCarthy, wherever he is, blush deep red. He boasted to CNN that in the world where he lives, the end does indeed justify the means.

When a reporter asked him whether he had lied, as Republicans said he did in 2012, when he named “an unnamed source” who told him that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years, and indignantly demanded that Mr. Romney prove the charge untrue, Mr. Reid replied, “Well, they can call it whatever they want. Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Mr. Reid made his reputation not just as an attack dog — there are such hounds in both parties — but as someone with no reluctance to lie when he thinks it’s to the advantage of himself and his party. He turned a notoriously tough but sometimes honorable trade into a dishonorable one. His colleagues not only allowed him to do so but also encouraged him to do so, which says more about his colleagues than it does about him.

He has succeeded in avoiding the investigation he deserves, or an indictment like that last week of Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, his Democratic colleague. Mr. Reid, unlike Mr. Menendez, is a staunch Obama ally, which is convenient. The Public Integrity Section of Eric Holder’s Justice Department worked tirelessly to indict Mr. Menendez (who is innocent until a court says otherwise), but it blocked a corruption investigation of Mr. Reid, as if afraid of what an investigation would turn up.

Mr. Reid’s career, from the beginning, has included major and minor ethical lapses that he has managed to ignore, explain away or persuade friends in high places to cover up for him. He has benefited from investments he enhanced with earmarks, engaged in insider training and channeled campaign funds to relatives.

When he wasn’t collecting boodle or poisoning the political conversation, he was throwing spitballs at the United States Senate, once “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” There has been little deliberation in Mr. Reid’s Senate. He stifled debate, prevented anything he didn’t like from coming to the floor for debate and emasculated the committee system. The Republican call for a return to “the regular order” is meant to salve the wounds inflicted by Mr. Reid and to restore the Senate to its historic role.

Some men go into politics to do good and instead do well; his record demonstrates that doing good is never a priority. His decision to take his gains, as if winnings from a crooked roulette table, and leave while he can, is reason for celebration. The cymbals should clash, the flutes should sing and the tin horns should get in their work. Happy days will be here again.

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