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Harry
Reid’s
History
Lesson
By John Fund
___December 8th, 2009
Wall Street Journal
Harry Reid’s History Lesson – WSJ.com
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Majority Leader Harry Reid
tarred opponents of his health
care bill yesterday as the
equivalent of those who opposed
equal rights for women and
civil rights for blacks.
In a remarkable statement
on the Senate floor,
Mr. Reid lambasted Republicans
for wanting to “slow down”
on health care.
“You think you’ve
heard these same
excuses before?
You’re right,”
he said.
“In this country there
were those who dug
in their heels and said,
‘Slow down,
it’s too early.
Let’s wait.
Things aren’t
bad enough’ —
about slavery.
When women
wanted to vote,
[they said]
‘Slow down,
there will be a
better day to
do that —
the day isn’t
quite right. . . .'”
He wrapped up his
remarks as follows:
“When this body
was on the verge
of guaranteeing
equal civil rights
to everyone
regardless of the
color of their skin,
some senators
resorted to the
same filibuster
threats that we
hear today.”
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Senator Reid’s comments
were quickly condemned.
“Hyperbole.
It is over the top.
It reminds me of earlier
people talking about Nazis,”
said Juan Williams of
NPR and Fox News,
author of “Eyes on the Prize,”
a definitive history of the
civil rights movement.
Historians also faulted
Mr. Reid’s curious reference
to the Senate civil rights
debates of the 1960s.
After all,
it was Southern Democrats
who mounted an 83-day
filibuster of the 1964 Civil
Rights Bill.
The final vote to cut off debate
saw 29 Senators in opposition,
80% of them Democrats.
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Among those voting to block
the civil rights bill was West
Virginia Senator Robert Byrd,
who personally filibustered
the bill for 14 hours.
The next year he also
opposed the Voting Rights Act
of 1965.
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Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate,
and indeed preceded Mr. Reid
as his party’s majority leader
until he stepped down from
that role in 1989.
The final reason Mr. Reid’s
comments were so inapt
and offensive is that the
battles for women’s suffrage
and civil rights he referred
to were about expanding
freedom.
That’s not what the
2,074-page health care bill
being debated in the Senate
today does,
with its 118 new regulatory
boards and commissions.
Mr. Reid may reach his
needed 60 votes to pass
his bill this month,
but he is pursuing it
using the most tawdry
and deplorable of tactics.
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