Harry Reid Uses Marine Deaths To Play Politics

Some people are beneath contempt. And one of them is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Today there was a training accident at the Hawthorne Army Depot in western Nevada that took the lives of 7 Marines. It involved a misfire of a 60-millimeter mortar round that exploded prematurely inside its tube during a nighttime live fire exercise.

As anyone who has handled mortars knows, like any other artillery or artillery rounds, malfunctions sometimes happen.

Senator Reid's reaction to this tragedy is characteristic of the man. He clearly implied that the deaths were caused by the Sequester and by those Evil Republicans.Here's what he had to say on the Senate floor today:

As I indicated, it was quite a big explosion. We’ll follow this news very closely. I will do whatever I can going forward to support the United States military and the families of the fallen Marines.

Mr. President, it’s very important we continue training our military, so important. But one of the things in sequester is we cut back in training and maintenance. That’s the way sequester was written. Now, the bill that’s on the floor, we hope to pass today helps that a little bit. At least in the next six months, it allows the military some degree of ability to move things around a little bit. Flexibility, we call it, and that’s good. But we have to be very vigilant. This sequester should go away. We have cut already huge amounts of money in deficit reduction. It’s just not appropriate, Mr. President, that our military can’t train and do the maintenance necessary.

These men and women, our Marines were training there in Hawthorne. And with this sequester, it’s going to cut back this stuff. I just hope everyone understands the sacrifices made by our military. They are significant, being away from home, away from families, away from their country.

Notice how the crafty Mr. Reid phrased this. It's quite clear what he's implying, but it's stated in such a way that he can try to claim plausible deniability if anyone calls him out on it.

The Marines, of course, were not fooled at all.

Per NBC Reporter Jim Miklaszewski:

Now I can tell you, Marine Corps officials this afternoon are taking a strong exception to what Harry Reid implied. Saying that this this exercise, for example, was planned well in advance, had nothing to do with the budget cuts. There were no corners cut, and if they couldn’t afford to have all the safety precautions into place, they wouldn’t do the exercise.

And in fact, one Marine Corps official told us a short time ago that he considers this nothing but pure political posturing on the backs of these dead Marines.

That's exactly what it is. To imply that the Marine Corps would risk their lives of their men because of 'budget cuts' takes a very special kind of politician.

Let's parse, briefly what this cockroach had to say.

In the first place, the sequestration - and the fact that it primarily affects the defense budget - was President Obama's idea and no one else's. it was a lousy deal agreed to by GOP leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell as a stopgap measure after the president went back on an agreement he had already made with Boehner and tried to shove an additional $450 billion in tax increases into the deal. If, as Senator Reid clearly implies the sequestration is the cause of anything, it can be laid at the feet of President Obama.

Second, this was a training exercise that went wrong because a shell fired prematurely. Unless the shell's manufacturer or the mortar's manufacturer was somehow magically affected by the Federal budget, the sequestration had nothing to do with what happened.

And third, let's consider the source. This is the senator who endangered U.S. troops under fire in Iraq by saying 'the war is lost', and by doing his best to sabotage the surge strategy and th egeneral in charge of it. This is the Senator threw a tantrum over a bill introduced by Senate Republicans to cut all funding off for Iraq and Afghanistan that challenged the seditious behavior being practiced by people like Senators Reid, Biden, Durbin, Obama and Clinton and essentially invited them to put up or shut up.

Needless to say, the Democrats felt forced by political considerations to vote with Republicans to keep funding our men and women under fire, and Reid's spiteful revenge was to see to it that a separate bill was tabled that would have provided a badly needed pay raise to our military and provided for the funding of needed equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, this is the man who now claims to be concerned about our military and their well-being.

Tomorrow, of course, he'll deny that he was referencing the sequester. Better yet, the Obama Administration will have someone from the Pentagon or one of the Joint chiefs of Staff do it.

I leave it to you to look at what Reid said.

This is the Majority leader of the U.S. Senate, someone who's actually in line for presidential succession playing these obscene games.

As I said, some people are simply beneath contempt.