Reid’s obligation

By Lisa Mascaro

Thursday, July 19, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's ornate offices in the U.S. Capitol are not the kind of gilded-age place where you want to be caught in your underwear.

But Reid was so overheated after a midnight address on the floor of the Senate that he stripped out of his trousers, then his shirt and tie, before settling into a cot for a snooze. On the Senate floor, others carried the all-night debate on the war in Iraq.

At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, as he dreamed that he was already awake, he woke up, freezing. Soon, he rejoined the fight.

At 11 a.m. Democrats , joined by four Republicans, fell eight votes short in an attempt to set a withdrawal date for U.S. troops. Another chance had passed.

By midday, Reid was back at his desk, dressed in a navy suit and smooth blue tie, under a favorite portrait of Mark Twain. His cot was out of sight.

Down the hall, Republicans held a news conference accusing him of grandstanding by calling an all-night session when the outcome of the vote was foreordained. A pro-war veterans group, Vets for Freedom, complained that Reid would not give it just one minute of his time.

But inside these walls, all was quiet except for Reid's reflections to a guest about the past 24 hours.

For Democrats on the left who say that history will judge Reid harshly for not doing enough to end the war, he said: "What I worry about more is what would happen if I hadn't done this. History would have nothing to look at."

He read aloud from an e-mail written by the father of a soldier who quit college to serve his country in Iraq. The soldier's Humvee has been blown up and he hasn't had a day off since January.

Reid spoke about what has become known as his Walter Reed moment - a visit in March to the Washington, D.C., military hospital when he was so moved by injured soldiers that he dramatically shifted his own position and called for cuts in war funding.

He said that when he reads about the 31 percent of Americans who support the war, he would like them to see what he has seen. He described men and women with missing arms and legs, their baby sons and daughters nearby.

"That's a picture that's hard to get out of my mind. That's what drives me."

The remarks were off script. His party's talking points say he should deliver this message: Ending the war would enable America to protect national security by fighting more effectively against terrorism.

But Reid strayed. "I have an obligation," he said, gazing straight ahead, speaking firmly. "I'm not going to ever stop. I feel if not me, who?"

Many observers see these July votes on the war as a dress rehearsal for September , when Congress will receive a much-anticipated report on the military troop surge and discuss the war anew. That is the moment Democrats hope they can turn enough Republicans to their side.

Reid hinted in the interview that the war debate may return earlier than that.

"We have to keep doing everything we can, whether it's next week, the week after or September to get the war changed," he said. "I don't want to wait 60 days, have scores more killed, hundreds more wounded.

"I simply believe this is a bad situation, a foreign-policy blunder, that's going to take generations to overcome. It's destabilized the Middle East and the world, and I want to be remembered as somebody who tried to change that."

He added: "The question I have is when is the president going to say, 'Let's work something out on this?' "

Soon the 67-year-old grandfather was up again, moving with more determination than some of the youthful climbers who aspire to one day have his job.

"Everybody's a little tired and slow around here today," he said. "I'm not tired or slow.

"Some people love to rest and sleep. I hate it. I always have."

archive