In an unusual moment on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., came close to apologizing to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the majority whip, for something he’d said the day before – apparently about Republicans being in “lockstep” with the Koch brothers.
Only when he was asked later in the day about what had appeared to be an apology, Reid told McClatchy with great irritation that he had not apologized. “I just want people to understand we battle on issues,” Reid said. “He didn’t ask for an apology and he didn’t expect an apology.”
Cornyn, who spoke on the Senate floor in the morning immediately after Reid’s non-apology, said he was “gratified” by the Democrat’s remarks and even quoted Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” about how lawyers fight in court but then come together afterward.
It’s true that for better or for worse, we both bear the burden of legal training and experience in courtrooms, where we learn that adversaries don’t necessarily have to be enemies.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas
So, what was this all about?
It appears that Reid was explaining his comments on the Koch brothers, billionaire conservative activists who are a frequent Reid target. “This Republican Senate has showed no spine, zero, in confronting the Kochs, who are trying to buy America,” Reid said Monday.
He then mentioned several GOP senators who he said voted with the Kochs on issues and said, “The assistant Republican leader has voted with the Kochs 82 percent of the time.”
But Tuesday morning Reid began his remarks – which he makes daily when the Senate is in session, speaking after Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – by saying that “I have been in the Senate a long time.” He then spoke of Cornyn, though not by name, as having had long Senate tenure as well as a distinguished legal career. Reid, a lawyer, was first elected to the Senate in 1986; Cornyn, a lawyer who was a Texas state Supreme Court justice, in 2002.
“So I want to say to him – he’s here on the floor today – we have had our differences. We speak about them often. Yesterday I criticized him for something I thought that he had done that was wrong, not in good keeping with the standards of the Senate, but I want everyone to know that my criticism of the senior senator from Texas is not based on anything dealing with his character, his integrity.”
Cornyn spoke a few minutes after Reid and said, “Let me express my gratitude to him.”
The Texas senator then quoted from Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”: “I always remember the excerpt from ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ where the speaker said, ‘Do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.’ So I think that kind of civility is an important admonition for all of us, one that maybe we don’t always live up to but one that I think we should continue to strive to emulate.”
And with that, Cornyn said he appreciated Reid’s comments and went on to talk about a partisan issue: the Republican dissatisfaction with the Obamacare health plan.
Maria Recio: 202-383-6103, @maria_e_recio