Ebenezer Reid & A Democratic Christmas Carol

The classic Dickens tale "A Christmas Carol" hardly needs summarizing. A wrongheaded and wholly unpleasant Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three unwelcome spirits on the eve of Christmas. The end result is that Ebenezer Scrooge has a catharsis, his eyes are opened to reality and he awakes on Christmas day evincing a complete change of perspective.

One cannot help but see that precise same scenario playing out in relation to own odious Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid outragously proclaimed our forces in Iraq defeated in April as a result of four al Qaeda suicide bomb attacks. One could almost hear the "bah humbug" from Reid as he has loudly and continuously proclaimed the "surge" doomed to failure. And at a press conference but days ago, on December 18, in complete denial of the facts on the ground, Harry Reid claimed that "the American people are losing," and that "Al Qaeda has regrouped and is able to fight a civil war in Iraq."

But something has happened. Given the timing this close to Christmas and the degree of apparent change in perspective, the only possible explanation is that our "Ebenezer" Reid has experienced a spectral visitation fully consonant with the Dickens' tale. Yes, it would seem Ebenezer Reid has been visited by . . . the ghost of Christmas Reality.

The president said, "Let's send some more troops over there, and that will give the Iraqis the time to take care of themselves." We sent other troops over there, and there are a lot of reasons the surge certainly hasn't hurt. It's helped. I recognize that.

That was Ebenezer Reid speaking in a December 21st PBS Newshour interview. And here, for all these years, I thought Dickens was a writer of fiction.

Now its true that this little Christmas miracle is nothing more than Ebenezer Reid, for the first time, acknowledging reality. He is still calling for a legislated surrender in Iraq. But I figure that too is bound to change when he is visited by the other two spirits between now and Christmas Day - i.e., the spirit of 1968 Democratic Elections Lost (or maybe even the Ghost of the 1864 Copperheads) and the Ghost of the 2008 Election Future . . . In full anticipation of these momentous yuletide events, I shall anxiously await a Christmas Day interview with Ebenezer Reid. Until then:

. . . as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843