Reid: Give Stevens a Get-of-Jail Card

"Some fascinating tidbits that didn't make the cut from Bresnahan's must-read sitdown with Harry Reid:

"The Majority Leader thinks former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens shouldn't face jail time for his seven-count federal conviction last year, telling our Manu Raju, who was also in the room, "My personal feeling, you guys, I don't know what good that [would do]... He was a real war hero too, you know. He's been punished enough."

"Members of Congress, he added, had long been used to not disclosing gifts until the rules had been tightened. And he said the 85-year-old Stevens simply did not adapt to those changing rules.

"It's a different world we live in, and Stevens did not understand that," Reid said."

Being a war hero and old (never mind being a lawmaker, which is what Stevens did for a number of years) means you needn't be subject to the results of illegal behavior. That is, there is no such thing as old enough to know better.

However, if you are in your late teens or early twenties, and are arrested for possession of marijuana then you do the time because if you are a young person you should know better than break laws crafted by the old people  who decide what laws to impose on the citizenry; but who, in their turn, are not subject to those laws because of their age.

So Reid, a Democrat, is basically asking people to take pity on Stevens, a Republican. There is the meme, again: The Pity Party.

I have to confess to mild surprise at the assistance the meme is receiving from the Democrats.

Are the Democrats going to bring dirt bombs and waterguns to the knife fight?

Update:

Or does this mean that Reid understands the use (and limits) of the short blade?

Reid: Dems must be 'very careful' about overreaching

By Bob Cusack and J. Taylor Rushing Posted: 01/06/09 03:51 PM [ET]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that Democrats have to
be "very, very careful" about overreaching.

<snip>

The Republicans are not going to roll over, like a whipped and defeated cur, and expose their balls to the Democrats. If anything, they are cornered, hurt, and insufficiently frightened. They remain a large bad dog that bites.

To the extent that the metaphor is useful: it is worth considering what the grip of such a dog can do to the body politic. What other metaphor could describe, for instance, this:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/snakes.php

We're watching the Republican leadership's press conference on the Stimulus bill. I think I got about all I needed to know watching Mitch McConnell (R) talking and seeing a smirking Rep. Eric Cantor (R) hovering over his shoulder. McConnell's angle seemed about what you'd expect. Love the tax cuts. We'll support those. But we're just starting to demagogue your spending proposals. So good luck on that ...

Or this one:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111279694652423.html

Obama Eyes $300 Billion Tax Cut

Huge Breaks for Firms, Individuals Are Aimed at Winning GOP Support for Stimulus

<snip>

Republicans are already criticizing parts of the stimulus package. Sen. McConnell, speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," questioned one of the biggest items, which would send as much as $200 billion to states largely to expand the federal share of Medicaid, the health program for the poor. He suggested structuring that aid as a loan, saying it would encourage states to "spend it more wisely."
  
<snip to the end>

So: if it's Medicaid for poor people the Republicans dictate that the Democrats must consider it a loan to encourage responsibility in the states (decode text "the states": the poor under- and non-insured, EG: brown people in New Orleans).

If that does not express The Protestant Work Ethic and recast The White Man's Burden, I'll eat my shorts.

If it's billions to financial institutions, no oversight is necessary; never mind making it a loan, to encourage responsibility and wise spending in the houses of those Ponzi-scheme constructing gamblers that wager on the output of people who go to their jobs to produce something with actual value.

Because we know, do we not, that the poor (decode text "the poor": Welfare Queens) are the ones who are robbing the Republic blind?

In over a quarter of a century, the rhetoric of the party of opposition has not changed one  iota.

It is a knife fight.

That's politics. You're welcome.