Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Dingy Harry Reid,'Dirty Harry'
DINGY HARRY: Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway. He's one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI and I think we would all agree that there's a problem there.
Clint Eastwood's movie character "Dirty Harry" Callahan was clean compared to Dirty Harry Reid, the Senate Democrats' minority leader. Callahan may have roughed up the bad guys but Senator Dirty Harry Reid smears anybody for any reason.
Thomas Sowell: While Senator Reid's cheap shot that President Bush was a "loser" -- a strange label for someone who has beaten Reid's party twice -- got a certain amount of notice in the media, a far worse remark by Senator Dirty Harry is that Michigan judge and federal judicial nominee Henry Saad has some things in his FBI file that should give Senators pause before confirming him.
What makes this dirty is that FBI files contain anything that anybody has said about you, whether it is true or untrue. That is why FBI files are confidential, because they include unsubstantiated statements that have not been evaluated by anybody.
Most Senators -- including Dirty Harry Reid -- have not and cannot see what is in the FBI file on Judge Saad because only members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are allowed to see that file. If any member of that committee said anything about that file to Senator Reid, that member violated confidentiality.
Even Judge Saad himself cannot see the file, so he has no way of knowing what Senator Reid is referring to -- and therefore no way to defend himself against whatever unknown statement may be there. Nor is there any way for him or us to know whether whatever is in the file is serious or trivial.
We have only the word of Senator Dirty Harry Reid: It so happens that my own FBI file, compiled back in the 1970s when President Ford nominated me to the Federal Trade Commission, contains a claim that I was a Communist. Not even the people who were opposed to my nomination took that seriously. But anonymous statements to the FBI are a way to knife someone in the back.
Why is Senator Reid making insinuations about unknown and unsubstantiated statements in Judge Saad's confidential FBI file? Because Dirty Harry is desperate.
It is not just that a showdown on judicial nominees is pending in the Senate. Senator Reid's Democratic Party has been losing elections consistently in the past few years.
Even to threaten to obstruct the operation of the Senate during a war is something that boggles the mind, whether or not the threat is actually carried out. It also boggles the mind to see liberals defending filibusters, whose best known use in the past has been to block civil rights legislation.
What they are really defending is the right of those who lost an election to prevent those who won from governing. Dirty Harry Reid is the right man for that kind of job.
DINGY HARRY: Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway. He's one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI and I think we would all agree that there's a problem there.
Clint Eastwood's movie character "Dirty Harry" Callahan was clean compared to Dirty Harry Reid, the Senate Democrats' minority leader. Callahan may have roughed up the bad guys but Senator Dirty Harry Reid smears anybody for any reason.
Thomas Sowell: While Senator Reid's cheap shot that President Bush was a "loser" -- a strange label for someone who has beaten Reid's party twice -- got a certain amount of notice in the media, a far worse remark by Senator Dirty Harry is that Michigan judge and federal judicial nominee Henry Saad has some things in his FBI file that should give Senators pause before confirming him.
What makes this dirty is that FBI files contain anything that anybody has said about you, whether it is true or untrue. That is why FBI files are confidential, because they include unsubstantiated statements that have not been evaluated by anybody.
Most Senators -- including Dirty Harry Reid -- have not and cannot see what is in the FBI file on Judge Saad because only members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are allowed to see that file. If any member of that committee said anything about that file to Senator Reid, that member violated confidentiality.
Even Judge Saad himself cannot see the file, so he has no way of knowing what Senator Reid is referring to -- and therefore no way to defend himself against whatever unknown statement may be there. Nor is there any way for him or us to know whether whatever is in the file is serious or trivial.
We have only the word of Senator Dirty Harry Reid: It so happens that my own FBI file, compiled back in the 1970s when President Ford nominated me to the Federal Trade Commission, contains a claim that I was a Communist. Not even the people who were opposed to my nomination took that seriously. But anonymous statements to the FBI are a way to knife someone in the back.
Why is Senator Reid making insinuations about unknown and unsubstantiated statements in Judge Saad's confidential FBI file? Because Dirty Harry is desperate.
It is not just that a showdown on judicial nominees is pending in the Senate. Senator Reid's Democratic Party has been losing elections consistently in the past few years.
Even to threaten to obstruct the operation of the Senate during a war is something that boggles the mind, whether or not the threat is actually carried out. It also boggles the mind to see liberals defending filibusters, whose best known use in the past has been to block civil rights legislation.
What they are really defending is the right of those who lost an election to prevent those who won from governing. Dirty Harry Reid is the right man for that kind of job.
