Lost in the Reids

Random Thought: Do you think if Hamid Kharzi had been an anti-American autocrat, that the UN election monitoring panel would have declared the Afghan election valid?

Random Thought #2: The balloon boy family is suspected of pulling a publicity stunt/hoax which is entirely plausible to anyone who saw the Mythbusters episode about helium balloons lifting a person (it takes a LOT of helium to even move a 60lb. child let alone get it up to 8000 feet). As soon as Shep Smith announced it was a helium filled balloon, I knew there was no way the boy was on it. Every policeman and responder, every TV station that filmed it, and every person put in any danger should file a civil suit against these people (and their backers) and ruin them financially. CPS should take their kids (that they were on Wife Swap should have been enough for that). Finally, someone should whack the dad on the back of the head with a nine iron for his Delta Bravo haircut (Delta Bravo is code for a feminine product one might use on a fresh Summer's Eve). These 'people' are prime examples Darwin was wrong. Some of us are 'devolving' back toward monkeys.

It may come as a shock to those of you who know me that I have been to an event that featured Senate Majority Leader and all around schmuck, Harry Reid (D-Nevada) as the keynote speaker. Back in the spring of 2007, my family descended on Reno, Nevada for my cousin's graduation from Nursing school at UNR and unfortunately, Reid was the address speaker.

I grumbled on the way to the ceremony about having to tolerate a speech from one of the most inane politicians ever to leave a slime trail up the Capitol steps. My dad told me that we should give him a chance and hear what he had to say. Though I did not want to, I agreed that he was right and resigned myself to the speech. Sadly, the day would prove me right and my dad wrong.

Though I did not meet Reid, I'm fairly sure that no one else did either. He apparently arrived just a few moments before the address and marched up to the stage. Barely able to see him from our spot in the campus green (and the fact that his ugly mug barely cleared the podium), we could still, unfortunately, hear him. Did he offer platitudinous rhetoric about the future? No. Did he tell the students they could achieve their dreams through hard work? No. Did he talk about America as a land of opportunity? Big nope. He gave short, pointless speech about growing up in Searchlight, Nevada and blathered on a little bit about his lack of accomplishment in the State Gaming Commission, House, and Senate.

As if that weren't bad enough, directly after the speech, HE LEFT!!! He didn't even return to his seat, he shook hands with the President of the University and walked off the back of the stage. What combination of hubris and self-centrism does it take for a US Senator, a servant of the people, to ignore 3000-4000 potential constituents at a very public function? If he were any kind of decent person, let alone Senator, he would have remained and even asked to shake each graduate's hand afterward. But then I might be expecting too much from the slimy little (and I mean short of stature...though I wouldn't be surprised if he had other shortcomings) mountebank to act like an actual human being.

Let's compare that to my graduation which was keynoted by pianist Roger Williams (Born Free, Autumn Leaves, etc.). Granted Mr. Williams was not a US Senator, but he gave a very impressive address and followed it up after the graduation by remaining behind to shake the hand of every one who wanted to meet him (students and guests included) and sign autographs. He was as kind and interested in the last people through the line as he was the first.

Harry Reid is finally in trouble in Nevada which shows you how hard it is to dislodge one of these carbuncles once they latch on to the hull of the great ship of state. Reid has survived by trailing his slime across Nevada. He is a 'MINO' (Mormon in Name Only) but it has been enough to get him votes in very conservative and very Mormon rural Nevada. Until Obama telling everyone to not go to Vegas, Reid was also chummy with the 'legitimate business interests' running that fair city giving him enough leverage to fight off GOP challengers. But thankfully he may be on the way out. His high profile as Majority Leader has made it so the conservatives cannot ignore his liberalism and his buddy the B-HO has alienated him from Sinatra's friends in Las Vegas. With luck, he will be among the political casualties left in Obama's wake in 2010.