Bill Bennett and David Wilezol take on Majority Leader Reid in today’s Roll Call:
.@dwilezol and I have a piece this morning in @rollcall on @SenatorReid's unwarranted attacks on the Koch brothers http://t.co/Lqd2VLEvrb
— Bill Bennett (@WilliamJBennett) September 16, 2014
The opener:
It’s no secret Democrats are nervous about November’s midterm elections. Obamacare, though out of the headlines this summer, remains unpopular with voters. Twice as many Americans are claiming the law has hurt them more than helped. In foreign affairs, the nation was aghast at the president’s decision in May to swap five captured Taliban commanders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a deserter from the Army. President Barack Obama’s speech last week on ISIL, or the Islamic State, was calculated to try to overcome his previous admission that, “We don’t have a strategy yet” to combat the biggest national security challenge the United States has faced since the 9/11 attacks on our soil.
Americans know the Democrat-held Senate has been one of the most unproductive in history. Even Democrats are admitting it. Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia recently remarked, “I’ve never been in a less productive time in my life than I am right now, in the United States Senate.”
In a panic over tight races, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has decided to deploy the class warfare strategy of Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and blame the rich for America’s continued economic stagnation. Reid has developed a particular obsession with attacking David and Charles Koch, two private citizens and successful American entrepreneurs and employers.
Since January, Reid has attacked the Koch brothers by name more than 22 times on the floor of the Senate, derisively calling them, “power-drunk billionaires,” among other things. Reid also claimed the Kochs are “single-handedly funding an attack on this nation’s middle class.” For the Nevada senator, the Kochs are “un-American,” and a “cult.” Perhaps the most preposterous statement that Reid has made is his insistence the Koch brothers were to blame for delaying American aid to Ukraine. The malice behind the rhetoric is evident when we consider that 50 percent of all Americans have zero idea of who the Koch brothers are. Neither of us has ever met the Koch brothers or received a penny of their money, but we find Reid’s attempt to fill America’s knowledge gap with poisoned ideas about the Kochs despicable.
The rest here.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member