The Radically Confused Harry Reid

[Geee]

American Thinker:

Commenting on the budget impasse recently, Senate leader Harry Reid decided to offer unsteady Republican leaders the benefit of his political wisdom. Reid repeatedly warned Republicans that -- for America's sake -- they can no longer be dragged into highly dangerous and irrational territory by the "radical and unpopular" Tea Party faction:

So let me reiterate my hope that the Republican leadership recognizes that they can't continue to be pulled to the right by the radical, unrealistic, unreasonable, I repeat, radical and unpopular faction, the Tea Party.

Indeed, according to the New York Times, marching orders were issued earlier that week by Reid's colleague Senator Chuck Schumer when Schumer advised fellow Democrats during a conference call to depict Republicans as being both "extreme" and "painted into a box by the Tea Party." According to the NY Times report:

After thanking his colleagues - Barbara Boxer of California, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut - for doing the budget bidding for the Senate Democrats ... Mr. Schumer told them to portray John A. Boehner of Ohio, the speaker of the House, as painted into a box by the Tea Party, and to decry the spending cuts that he wants as extreme.

In our present political context, resting the definition of terms like "radical" and "extreme" on the specious designs of politicians like Reid and Schumer will prove extremely harmful to America. What Americans need, in other words, is a more astute and trustworthy standard of "extreme" and "radical" in order to make judgments about the Democrats' highly volatile rhetoric.