Democrat Strategist: Liberal Bloggers Have 'Much Too Much Influence Over' Harry Reid

http://newsbusters.org/ ^ | June 16, 2007 | Noel Sheppard

[lowbridge]

Democrat Strategist: Liberal Bloggers Have 'Much Too Much Influence Over' Harry Reid

Posted by Noel Sheppard on June 16, 2007 - 13:42.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a Democrat strategist chiding a senior Democrat official, and claiming that liberal bloggers have “much too much influence over” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada).

Yet, that’s what happened Saturday when Fox News' Catherine Herridge invited Democrat strategist Bob Beckel and Republican strategist Rich Galen on to discuss recent events on Capitol Hill.

To set this up, Herridge said (video available here courtesy of Allah at Hot Air):

Gentlemen, let’s start with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He described the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs this week as “incompetent,” and a senior commander in Iraq as “out of touch.” Rich, what have your readers been saying about that?

RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, my readers didn’t go quite as ballistic as I did. I, I was, I was truly angry about that, because, I mean, I think that there is a time and a place to, to talk about the way things are going. But that kind of name-calling, and the only reason he used that kind of language was because he was on a private phone call with liberal bloggers.

BOB BECKEL, DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST: Well, that’s the thing that’s amazing to me. There’s no such thing as a private phone call, anyway, let alone with a bunch of bloggers. There’s something about Harry Reid and the left of bloggers that has gotten, there’s a marriage gone on there. I mean, frankly I think they got much too much influence over him. And the idea that he thought he could get away with saying that and it’s not going to get out is crazy.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Beckel made similar statements on either “Meet the Press” or “This Week” some Sunday morning?

[new yorker 77]

I wish we had the same respect from “our side”.

[muawiyah]

Harry's a blog junky.

But, he's not a good one. Else he'd be over here in FR taking us on.

[okie01]

[Reid] described the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs this week as “incompetent,” and a senior commander in Iraq as “out of touch.”

So, this is what the "new tone" has wrought...

The only way to deflect the Democrats from their rendezvous with hell is a crushing defeat at the polls.

[hsalaw]

RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, my readers didn’t go quite as ballistic as I did.

Oh, I don't know, Rich. I went pretty ballistic and let Reid, Mitch McConnell, and the RNC know about it. Reid is a treasonous defeatist who's giving aid and comfort to our enemies, and the damn dems (and equally damn RINOs) are letting him get away with it. The dems think we're all distracted by illegal immigration - and the way FR reads these days, they're not far wrong. But I'm not, and I won't be.

[operation clinton cleanup]

There’s no such thing as a private phone call, anyway

True, just ask John Boehner.