Is Harry Reid Ready for primetime?

Increasingly, the answer seems to be "no."

Call me silly, but I think the Republicans will be helped more over the next four years by a solid and consistent opposition then by a flabby, lunatic one. The greatest danger for the party's domestic political agenda is to become triumphalist and lazy. A sharp opposition will force them to keep their message clear and most importantly moored in the center.

BTW, because I was still in post stomach flu mode I was zoned out on the couch and happened to watch The West Wing. What was bizzare about the whole thing was their use of Alan Alda as a Republican Senator running for President. Now, it was comical at a number of levels: 1) the WW's writer's soviet envisions a tough Republican moderate good guy as....an Alan Alda who clearly has been drinking his prune juice sans pulp; B) the WW's actor's soviet trying to act as if an obviously evil (you can see Bradley Whitford's wheels turning slowly, "I mean, Leo, the man's a Republican....which means if he's not molesting kids he's chopping them up and feeding their livers to old people!") Republican facing the extreme possibility of .....winning; III) NBC suits going after the prized advertiser's demographic of 75 year olds and up by turning Jed Bartlett into FDR.