Cry 'God for Harry!'

This is a Global Review first: Harry Reid (D-Nev) as a profile in courage. He's facing an uphill climb for reelection, and he's unwilling to rubber stamp the monstrosity proceeding from the Senate Finance Committee.

Reid stunned a meeting of Senate Democrats by announcing he was scrapping Baucus-Grassley, replacing it with a much cheaper, more narrowly crafted, $15 billion version... The White House also appeared to be caught off guard...

[A]ides said that Reid was tired of constant lobbying from Democrats who wanted a bigger package and a long list of specific provisions included in the bill. Reid complained that the various requests had "watered down" the Democrats' job-creation message and wanted to present voters with a more streamlined bill.

It's telling that the Senate's liberal leader could identify only 18% of the original spending as clearly 'job creating'. Conservative Republicans and budget hawks from both parties should be leaping to support Reid here. Voters aren't tired of Democrats, they're tired of spendthrifty Congressmen of both parties. Democrats mistook the anti-Washington mood in 2008 for a specifically anti-Bush mood; they didn't change anything in DC except the color of the drapes. Republicans would be fools now to mistake the voters' anger with Democrats for love for Republicans.

Senator, if you have ever spoken about the need to control the deficit and govern responsibly, this is your time to act.