LETTER: Harry Reid is no saint
Stop. Hold the presses. Harry Reid (the former Senate majority leader) goes from mere mortal to sainthood? Give me a break. Yet that seems to be UNLV historian Michael Green’s take (letters, Nov.3), as he chides his fellow historian Victor Davis Hanson for his opinion of the Senate Republican vote on Amy Coney Barrett: “As a historian, Victor Davis Hanson should know more about how to do research,” Mr. Green writes, while saying that “Mr. Reid understood” that “Republicans might someday have power and predicted that, if they did, they would go farther — as they did.”
Also, Mr. Green pointed out that under Mr. Reid, executive and judicial nominees were confirmed with 51 votes. But isn’t it splitting hairs to get all fired up about approving a justice with 51 votes yet having no qualms about top-level executive nominees getting Senate approval with only 51 votes?
Mr. Green should understand that in the 2012 presidential election, Senate Democrats held power and St. Harry (Reid) made the spurious claim that Mitt Romney did not pay taxes for an entire decade. In response, The Washington Post awarded Mr. Reid “Four Pinocchios” for his “no taxes” claim. Some have suggested that this contributed to Mitt Romney’s defeat in the presidential election.