From the March 20, 2013, edition of “Viewpoint.”
John Fugelsang:
Doesn’t Harry Reid remind you of one of those S&M slaves who just keeps getting pummeled ’cause he forgot his safety word?
Or maybe he just pretends to forget his safety word ’cause he likes being pummeled.
See, we’ve talked extensively on this show about how Harry Reid repeatedly promised he’d enact filibuster reform on the first workday of the year, and then he crumpled like a hollow inflatable guy outside a car dealership.
Now, we’ve talked extensively about how Harry Reid was gonna let the assault weapons ban die in the Senate — we all knew he was gonna do it — despite the fact that it’s supported, as of today, by a majority of Americans, 57 percent. Not that that means anything in a democracy.
But the assault weapons ban is also supported by Sylvester Stallone and was previously supported by the late Ronald Reagan, two guys I never expected to see to Harry Reid’s immediate left.
And now he’s let it happen. He wants you to know he feels really bad about it. He feels so bad that he let this ban fail. But Harry, I know you’re terrified of having the NRA turn on you and give you a lower rating.
You see, back in 2010, I remember you almost lost your Senate seat to Sharron Angle, the first major party candidate ever to run for Senate on an outpatient basis. You’re up for re-election in four years, Harry, so naturally keeping assault weapons out of the hands of potentially deranged civilians and saving American lives in the process is far less important than you still getting to be a senator in your 80s.
You’ve said you feel just awful about it, but it’s not feasible because you just don’t have the votes. You wish you had the votes, but you counted: “The votes aren’t there. We can’t do anything more than that. Sorry, will of the American people. What’s the point of fighting?” And I respect that.
But Harry, it’s one thing to say, “Look, we fought hard for it and we had to capitulate,” but you only get to say that if you actually fought hard for it. And you didn’t, Sen. Reid. You caved like an unregulated coal mine. You folded like wet cardboard. I’ve run out of metaphors for you.
And I get that this assault weapons ban was always gonna die, that you guys were never serious about it — it was your sacrificial lamb so you can get background checks. I get that the Democrat/Republican conflict is often a game of good cop/bad cop — or in your case, Harry, old cop who refuses to retire ’cause he can’t give up wearing the badge.
But Newtown really did change things. And if you can’t realize that — if you don’t recognize there’s an increasingly outraged majority over the easy availability of mass killing machines, if you don’t understand that if there was ever a time to stand for principle and risk losing an election — then I’m sorry, dear leader, you are as useless as a human appendix.
And you know what? Let me just say one thing about assault weapons: They can’t be called assault weapons. A toaster that’s plugged in is an assault weapon if you drop it in somebody’s bathtub. They’re machines designed to kill lots of people really fast, and some of us don’t want civilians to have easy access.
So when President Obama gave his State of the Union, all he asked for was to call it to a vote. That’s it. Let the American people know where every member of Congress stands on the availabilty of these weapons designed to kill lots of people really fast, guys like James Holmes.
When the president said this, why did you applaud, Harry? If you had no intention of having a vote, why pretend to for the camera?
If you, the leader of the Senate, can’t have one measly vote on this to honor the children killed in Newtown, then why don’t you just leave the Senate and do a job you’d be right for? Like taking a page out of Fred Thompson’s book and becoming a TV reverse-mortgage spokesman?
