California Conservative

I just finished watching as much of Harry Reid’s briefing on the Patriot Act as I could stand. That amounted to less than a minute. In that brief time, however, I saw the definition of the word chutzpah. It was Harry Reid. Check out this Harry quote from a Reuters article:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said, “The president says he wants to fight the terrorists, but his political stunt with the Patriot Act suggests he’s more interested in scoring political points. Extend it, don’t end it,” said Reid. He said a majority of the Senate would back a temporary extension if Republican leaders allowed a vote on it.

This is the same Harry Reid that proclaimed to loud applause that they’d “killed the Patriot Act.” Does he think that we won’t remember last Friday’s events? Is he that stupid? Or does he think we’re that stupid and/or forgetful?

Here’s an exchange from Fox News Sunday:

REID: Think of what happened 20 minutes ago in the United States Senate. We killed the Patriot Act. (Applause.)

WALLACE: Senator, is that really something to celebrate?

REID: Of course it is. The fact is that I voted for the original Patriot Act, it was the right thing to do, and the Patriot Act that I talked about there, at least some semblance of it, came out of the judiciary committee in the Senate unanimously, it passed the Senate unanimously. It was an improvement over what we had. It was sent to the House of Representatives and came back in a fashion that I thought was very bad, as did a bipartisan group of senators. Now, keep in mind what we’re talking about. 2003, New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, hundreds of thousands of people come to Las Vegas. And do you know that those people that came to Las Vegas had their credit cards looked at; they had what rooms they stayed in, what cars they rented? Now, what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, but not in this instance. It’s in some federal data bank. That’s what the Patriot Act is doing to the American people, and we have to make sure that Big Brother doesn’t take over this country.

An now Reid expects us to trust him when he says “Mend it, don’t end it?” That isn’t gonna happen, Mr. Reid. You’ve proven in less than a week that you can’t be trusted.

The key section in Reid’s long answer is “The fact is that I voted for the original Patriot Act, it was the right thing to do, and the Patriot Act that I talked about there, at least some semblance of it, came out of the judiciary committee in the Senate unanimously, it passed the Senate unanimously. It was an improvement over what we had. It was sent to the House of Representatives and came back in a fashion that I thought was very bad, as did a bipartisan group of senators.”

It might interest Sen. Reid to know that Chairman Sensenbrenner and Chairman Specter verified that the House gave in on 80% of the the provisions. Is the Minority Leader now saying that getting 80% of what he wants isn’t good enough?

To be blunt, that’s the definition of chutzpah, Senator. Does this mean that you’ll let these key provisions of the Patriot Act expire because you didn’t get 100% of the things you wanted? Sir, that’s what I’d expect of a spoiled brat. It isn’t the behavior of a senator, much less what I’d expect of the Senate Minority Leader.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has more on chutzpah.

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 6:34 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Homeland Security, Law, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.