Harry Reid's really sick of John McCain in case you're wondering

The United States Senate used to be one of the world's most exclusive so-called gentleman's clubs with the occasional woman allowed in if she didn't mind cigar smoke. There was a lot of that "My honorable colleague from the great state of Mississippi" stuff, and backs got scratched in bipartisan ways.

The Senate is quite an exclusive club, only 100 people. Which tends to distort their sense of self-importance. Remember in high school how the two prettiest cheerleaders never got along and each had their own posse traipsing along beside and behind?

Those are senators. They wear their self-importance especially prominently during their numerous breaks back home, which in Congress are called recesses like those 15-minute playtimes we used to get after math before geography.

Except Senate recesses are long puppies. Just the current one is five weeks in length because members are so exhausted from not doing much and earning the lowest favorable ratings in history. (Wasn't it just last August that Congress was complaining about the Iraqi Parliament taking all of August off?)

Anyway, the Senate's old-fashioned decorum seems to have crumbled in more recent times. The Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, was chatting with the folks over at the Las Vegas Review-Journal the other day. Reid's not up for....

...reelection until 2010, but it never hurts to schmooze with journalists as if they matter.

Naturally, Reid was asked about the ongoing presidential race that will send only the third sitting senator in American history to the White House. Reid's son was a big booster of Sen. Hillary Clinton. So he hoped to get something out of that. Oops, hitched to the wrong star.

And now all the polls seem to be tightening between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. Reid can be a little testy. He's the one who once told a group of visiting high school students that President Bush was "a loser." 

Now if McCain pulls off yet another comeback and wins the White House, it looks like he'll have a similar relationship as Bush with Reid.

In his newspaper chat Reid didn't call McCain a loser, but he made clear that he doesn't have much use for the senator from next-door Arizona.

Reid was describing a recent conversation he had with Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Connecticut Democrat who got dumped by his party in 2006 and got elected as an independent but caucuses with Democrats to protect their slim majority while hanging around a lot with Republicans like McCain anyway.

Lieberman, who was also the Democrats' VP nominee in 2000 with what's-his-name who invented the Internet and global warming, is even going to have a prominent speaking role at the GOP convention in St. Paul in 11 days. As a courtesy, Lieberman called the Democratic caucus boss in advance to alert him about the speech.

Reid explained: "He has a close personal relationship with John McCain. I don't fully understand why he does."

Reid added: "I told him last night, 'You know, Joe, I can't stand John McCain.' He said, 'I know you feel that way.' "

In the Las Vegas News-Journal story by Molly Ball, Reid said McCain was wrong on the issues and has the wrong temperament for a president.

All of which goes against what the Congressional Record recorded Reid saying about McCain on Sept. 20 last year: "I respect the senior Senator from Arizona because he doesn't hide what he stands for. I admire him. He stands for what he thinks is the right thing to do.”

Then asked about his benevolent treatment of Lieberman despite the former Democrat's traitorous political activities, Reid said: "All my close votes, he's always with me...Why would I want to throw away a good vote?"

Reid said he hoped Lieberman was not McCain's VP choice because Connecticut's governor, a Republican, would be naming Lieberman's successor. Reid was enthusiastic about Joe Biden as Obama's running mate, but much less so about Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana or Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

Reid predicted a surprise pick, maybe Hillary Clinton or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. And he said he'd been talking with Obama often, "mostly telling him who I didn't want."

Presumably, that would include John McCain.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Associated Press and with a Hat Tip to our pal Frank James at the Swamp.

Comments

[Morgan Walker]

It doesn't look like Harry Reid is going to be more tired of McCain is than FoxNews already is of Obama...>http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/20/watch_fox_news_mccain_document_8393.php

[anonymous]

Hookay, Senator Reid just held a major conference in Las Vegas about renewable energy. You guys didn't bother to cover it. Seems a 100 square mile area outside of LV is already slated for solor power. It can fuel the whole US grid for power. Just build the lines.
Now, the senators from CA, WA and OR are doing their own thing Sept 23 in OR to discuss their issues. Seems their all for wind/wave farms.

This is not about our dependency on oil or solutions, but about who is in what pocket. The solar farms in NV are not where people live, sight see or eat. The wind and wave farms that are *critical* to renewable energy in WA, OR and CA are right in the middle of distressed ocean environments that we depend on for food.

Leave the oceans alone!!!!! Build the renewable energy facilities -- you pick the technology -- where people don't live (ie power lines) or where our food sources are!

We don't live on scorpions and tortoises in 120 degree heat!!

Come together people, the oceans cannot sustain this!

[Alessandro Machi]

Reid, Pelosi, and Dean had it in for Hillary Clinton. Reid's state of Nevada pulled a fast one on HIllary Clinton, Barack Obama lost the Nevada Caucus vote to HIllary Clinton, but still grabbed 14 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 11.

http://www.HILLARY-WINS.com
http://www.CAUCUSCHEATING.com
http://www.FAIR-REFLECTION.com
http://www.HILLARYCLINTONFORUM.net

[James]

I love these LA times blogs cause they really show the true bias of the times staff no wonder there newspaper is a joke, wish they didnt pop on google news...

[Jim Sanchez]

Harry - it's ok, I think the feeling is mutual.

[maz hess]

Lieberman as a Jew in a christian society, once chosen by his democratic comrades to get their vp for the US, betray his old buddies for money and hurt feelings and abandon them in their warshaw-ghetto like fight to overcome a suppressing political reality which has lasted now for generations. Would calling him our daily Judas really be harsh?