Nuclear Option

GOP Incensed At Reid's 'Tyrannical' Hardball Tactic

Brian Beutler | October 7, 2011, 10:14AM

Harry Reid (D-NV)

As explained at length here, Harry Reid's Thursday night power play set a very narrow new precedent in the Senate. But it was a power play nonetheless. Setting aside its less-than-modest real impact, it required using the same "nuclear option" tactics Republicans threatened in 2005 during the fight over judicial filibusters. If in 2005 the GOP was threatening to detonate a massive H-bomb over a major city, last night Harry Reid set off a rusty old fission devise in the empty desert. Both nukes, very different impacts.

But Republicans are steamed. Steamed doesn't really even begin to describe it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was practically trembling in anger Thursday night. On Twitter, NRSC chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) called the move "tyranny". And a Senate GOP leadership aide sent me the following remark, suggesting Republicans will remember this whenever they take the majority.

"Democrats are remarkably short-sighted--they forget they'll be in the minority someday and will have to live with THEIR rules," the aide said.

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