On Tuesday, Senate majority leader Harry Reid threw one heck of a book party. His memoir, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington, just came out in paperback, and to celebrate the occasion the Nevada senator held a fundraiser at Caesar’s Palace. The event, billed under the same title as the book, featured Vegas headliner Bette Midler, as well as Sheryl Crow. But the star of course was Barack Obama, who spent the evening praising Harry Reid and working on his stage banter — “Hello, Las Vegas,” “Give it up for our outstanding performers,” etc. The cost of admission? A mere $2,400 toward Reid’s reelection — the maximum allowable campaign donation.
Most authors would kill to promote their work with these kinds of resources. But having recently read The Good Fight, it seems doubtful to me that even a star-studded party (literally singing the book’s praises) and an endorsement by the leader of the free world can sell this turkey. And given how unintentionally unflattering the book is to its author, Reid would probably be better off keeping the book’s existence quiet.
And it’s been kept pretty quiet so far. Released a year ago, the book got one glowing review: from his hometown paper. Every other major media outlet has been standoffish. Take this blurb from the Washington Post, proudly emblazoned on the back of the paperback edition: “Recounts fights with everyone from classmates to the man who would eventually become his father-in-law, preparing him for a senatorial life of battling the Bush White House and Republican filibusters.” Beware the value-neutral blurb: In fact, the Post never reviewed the book — the quote comes from a gossip column published a month before the book’s release. One of the most powerful men in Washington published a book, and the entire journalistic establishment’s reaction seems to have been, “If you can’t say something nice . . . ”
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Of course, Reid doesn’t always have nice things to say himself. While no one expects Reid to praise George W. Bush, the degree to which he is judgmental and catty regarding the former president pretty much speaks for itself. Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a bitch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”
What’s the purpose of recording for posterity a bit of hearsay defaming a woman Reid admits he has no cause to dislike? Is Reid really so petty as to insult someone’s mother? Why yes, yes he is.
Here’s another unintentionally revealing anecdote describing Reid’s relationship with Bush. In a passage describing a meeting the two men had at the White House on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Reid writes: “That day he wore on his face a look of bravado that we’ve all come to know, and said something I will never have the words to adequately describe. But to understand what he said is to understand something profound about the problem at the heart of the administration. Speaking of the fact that the war was being used by radical Islamists for jihadi recruitment, Bush said, ‘Of course, al Qaeda needs new recruits, because we’re
killin’ ’em.’ He then gave a smirk — that ‘Bring
’em on’ smirk — that we’ve all come to know.
‘We’re killin’ ’em all,’ he said.”
Oh, the horror. Naturally, this comment of Bush’s is followed up with pages of Reid recollecting the perfectly composed monologue he gave in response. (It also helpfully explains in exacting detail why the surge plan then being considered wouldn’t work, with no acknowledgment in retrospect that it did.)
