Profile In Cowardice

Senate Majority "Leader" Harry "Bending" Reid -- arguably the worst Senate leader ever --  announced yesterday that an assault weapons ban would not be part of gun control legislation coming out of the Senate.   Saying that he couldn't muster the 60 votes necessary to block a filibuster, Reid put a spotlight on not only the power of the National Rifle Rampage Association over the Senate, but also on his failure to reform the filibuster rule when he had a chance.  Sen. Diane Feinstein -- who should have Reid's job -- expressed disappointment at the decision not to include an outright ban on assault weapons and high capacity clips in the legislation.  Now, just three months after Newtown, universal background checks are also being described as "in limbo."  Here's the editorial in the New York Daily News (hardly a "progressive" paper):

"Mark this day — for it is the day that the United States Senate, cowed by the National Rifle Association, failed 20 murdered children. On Tuesday, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” turned tail and ran from a life-or-death fight. Having promised the American people a robust package of gun control measures that would keep machines of murder out of the hands of criminals and the deranged, the Senate disgracefully bowed to the gun lobby and buckled on the assault weapons ban."

What a disgrace to the memory of those children.