Folks around the country are shaking their heads at Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who seemed to argue in the video below that children with cancer were a reasonable casualty in his campaign of steadfast opposition to compromise with the Republican-led House of Representatives:
Kids with cancer can join Republicans, tourists, black people, Hispanics, unemployed people, Barbara Bush, dogs, overweight people and lady reporters as people who have been dismissed, derided and chastized by our Senate Majority Leader.
Here’s a list of just 10 offensive things Harry Reid has said in recent years.
1) Why must smelly tourists visit the Capitol?
He’s actually spoken of his disdain for American tourists on multiple occasions. Here’s one of the times:
“Mr. President, someone wanting to visit the Capitol today, there is no place for them to gather. They gather -it used to be out on the East Front – now they gather on the West Front. And the people who work here joke about you can always tell when it’s summertime because you can smell the visitors. And what we mean by that Mr. President – they stand out there in the high humidity, heat, sweating, and it’s really – there’s no place for them to go.”
2) Hispanic Republicans are beneath contempt.
“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican. Do I need to say more?”
You could say more, yes. Maybe a word or two to all the Hispanics you offended.
3) Obama doesn’t talk as black as those dark-skinned folks.
The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
4) The sitting president who is making a delicate foreign visit is a “loser.”
Ah, such diplomacy, that one.
5) Lady reporters are idiots.
A sample of totally non-sexist things he said in one day:
Reporters tried to pin Reid down Thursday on the amendment issue. In the exchange, Reid told one reporter she should “watch the [Senate] floor more often. … You might learn something.” Another reporter explained she had watched the Senate proceedings and said it was not clear he was … offering separate amendments, to which Reid asked the reporter if she “spoke English.” “Turn up your Miracle Ear,” Reid added.
6) The majority of the country that opposed the Affordable Care Act are like slaveholders.
It’s in the Congressional Record, S.12564, 12/7/09:
“When This Country Belatedly Recognized The Wrongs Of Slavery, There Were Those Who Dug In Their Heels And Said: Slow Down.” “This is indeed historic, as I began my conversation today. I am not afraid to say it is. But instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans can come up with is this: Slow down. Stop everything. Let’s start over. If you think you have heard these same excuses before, you are right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said: Slow down. It is too early. Let’s wait. Things aren’t bad enough.”
7) Former First Lady Barbara Bush was a *itch, and her son took after her.
He actually volunteered this bit of hearsay defaming a woman because insulting someone you don’t have “anything against” is totally civil:
“[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a bitch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”
8) Today was a good day, because 36,000 Americans lost their jobs.
Yes, he really said, “Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.” And to think they say Reid doesn’t seem to care about the economy.
9) What if I told you something I just made up about how Mitt Romney paid no taxes?
Winning elections is important, even if it means you have to just invent nameless sources who tell you very convenient, if untrue, things:
He was only off by $2 million in the year 2011 alone.
Oh, and did you see that bit about how Romney’s dad would be disappointed in him? You’re all class, Harry!
He also said Mitt Romney is a bad Mormon:
10) You know who I don’t like? Oregon Jews, fat people and dogs.
From Mark Leibovich’s This Town:
Reid randomly called my desk a few years later to wish me a “happy Jewish holiday.” I don’t remember what Jewish holiday it was, or if I even knew it was a Jewish holiday. Reid then bragged to me that he was a “hero” to the then nine Jews in the Senate because he had adjourned the chamber in time for them to get home for whatever Jewish holiday it was. He reeled off the names of all the Senate Jews: Lieberman, Schumer, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, etc. He concluded with Ron Wyden of Oregon, and when I expressed surprise that Wyden was Jewish— and mock surprise they even had Jews in Oregon— Reid deadpanned, “Yes, there are two of them in Oregon, and we have one of them.” And he hung up without saying good-bye, or shalom. When wandering alone, Reid will sometimes break into a slight grin, as if he has just told himself a joke. Reid reminds me sometimes of a child— a peculiar child who has an imaginary friend who he speaks to unfiltered when he is alone, or not alone. Reid was once being wired up for a television interview in Las Vegas and was overcome by the need to tell the technician fastening his microphone that he had “terrible breath.” When an aide asked Reid later why he would possibly say such a thing, Reid calmly explained that it was true. He has a heightened sense of smell … He is also surprisingly food- and body-obsessed, more evocative of a teenage girl than an earthy old boxer. He will occasionally partake of yoga (in black Lycra stretch pants) with Landra in their Ritz-Carlton apartment. He can be harshly judgmental of fat people and other ill-conditioned creatures. When George W. Bush invited Reid to the Oval Office for coffee as a gesture of goodwill at the end of his presidency, Reid promptly insulted the president’s dog, Barney, who had trotted into their meeting. “Your dog is fat,” Reid told the president.
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