A True Opposition Party?

The news that Harry Reid, a Mormon from Utah, had been elected the new Democratic minority leader in Congress did not inspire a great deal of confidence. With all due respect to the state and the people, Utah is not exactly a hotbed of progressive politics, and "Democratic Mormon" feels like an oxymoron. But Reid went on Meet the Press on Sunday, and darned if he didn't offer up some genuine criticisms of the Bush administration.



For example, here he is on Social Security:



Tim, I can remember as a little boy my widowed grandmother with eight children. She lived alone, but she felt independent because she got every month her old age pension check. That's what this is all about. The most successful social program in the history of the world is being hijacked by Wall Street. Yes, Social Security is a good program. And if the president has some ideas about trying to improve it, I'll talk to him, and we as Democrats will, but we are not going to let Wall Street hijack Social Security. It won't happen. They are trying to destroy Social Security . . . when Social Security came before the Congress, who opposed it? The Republicans. And they have a long memory. They've been trying to destroy Social Security for a long time and now they think they have an opening to do it.



Reid also had some harsh words for the administration's notion of tax "reform." And he defended the Democratic Party's status as the big-tent, inclusive party, by insisting that the Democrats are not going to follow the new Republican policy of using ideological litmus tests, rather than seniority, to decide committee chairmanships. (He also said that Barbara Boxer, whose views on abortion are quite different from his own, is the closest thing to a sister he's ever had.)



And to top it all off, he took on Clarence Thomas:



I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don't--I just don't think that he's done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.



Of course, the accusations of racism have already started, but Reid had to know that was coming, and he took a stand against the--yes--embarrassingly incompetent Thomas anyway.



It's almost enough to give a person hope.