Reid has found a way to make 61 the magic number. Quelle Surprise!

I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.

Good christ.

I hate that he has the same surname as me. Can we get Tim Reid in as Senate Majority Leader instead?

Sad to say, I’d be a little bit disappointed if he didn’t say something this spineless.

Well, I’m no fan of Reid, but when he says “60 votes on paper,” maybe he’s just being realistic.

Because to pass a cloture vote and end a Republican filibuster, he has to have 60 senators present and voting. Ted Kennedy is very ill, and Robert Byrd is old and frail. Neither of them can count on being able to make it to the Chamber when their votes are needed.

So realistically, even without any defections,  Reid only has 58 votes. That’s not going to change for quite some time.

I’ve seen more backbone in the cephalopod family…...

I agree that we don’t really have a reliably corral-able block of 60 votes. And as much as one desires to hate on Harry for not crowing about wielding an unstoppable supermajority, it’s a near-certainty that bragging now would set him up to look like a total asshole the first time he failed to materialize one in the Senate chambers…probably on the very next vote that comes up.

The truth is, only another mass-casualty terrorist attack on US soil will awaken the Blue Dog Dems to the necessity of iron unity on all Senate votes. And while I pray that never happens, if it does I hope it happens in one of their home states, and that the terrorists are only successful because of spending cuts the Blue Dogs demanded from the Stimulus Bill.

There, I said it. Everyone at Hot Air is calling for a new terrorist attack to motivate Conservative reps to start standing up for America…and, dammit, I’m just as much a patriot as they are. With luck, the terrorists will pick a state that’s evenly split, so we only have to lose one.

So why are Kennedy and Byrd hanging on to their seats?  I mean really, they know they are tool old and frail to make it to a vote so wouldn’t it be more sensible to give up their seats to someone who could, you know, show up and earn the damn paycheck?  If I were them I would insist on being wheeled into the chamber on a stretcher so I could vote.

So why are Kennedy and Byrd hanging on to their seats?

Interesting bit of Senate trivia: when you’re sworn in, a page removes the part of your brain which allows for the notion that maybe—-just maybe—-you are not entirely irreplaceable.

marindenver has the full clip of Michael Scheuer and Glenn Beck rooting the terrorists on.

Man, I’m slow on the uptake. I just realized that was the plot of “24” this past season.

Harry is definitely not the ball-busting man-of-action we need in the Senate. At the same time, I’m not sure who would be.

I’ll go quasi-PUMA for a moment and say: Hillary Fucking Clinton!  Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a damned blessing as SoS, but we could have used her strength in the Senate.  Majority Leader?  In a heart beat…

The problem with that is assuming she would want the gig, which stems from theproblem of overestimating the desireability of the Leader position.