By Rolando Larraz
I have been hesitating about writing this column for a few days because I do not want to be accused of being unfair to now retired, once Majority Leader U.S. Senator Harry Reid, and to prove my innocence I am giving retired once Majority Leader U.S. Senator Harry Reid all the ceremonial credit and title he and his followers believe he deserves.
Everyone wonders why or how the almighty once Majority Leader U.S. Senator Harry Reid lost his lawsuit case against the exercise band maker that he blamed for career-ending injuries including blindness in one eye.
Several articles and letters have been written about it and many, if not all, wonder how the almighty once Majority Leader U.S. Senator Harry Reid could have lost his case, and here I am… trying to explain it in a few short words so my accent does not disturb my intention to balance public opinion; in only one word it’s call EGO.
Well, it may be more than one word but I am going to start with one and then go with a few more to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Most people give the old man too much credit, but the credit belongs to the people around him that make him the Superman he thinks he is and that is why he cannot finalize his long overdue retirement.
Reid knew that he had no case; he knew that from day one, but he thought he would walk into the courtroom and everyone from the judge to every member of the jury would melt and rule in his favor because he does not want to realize that his fifteen minutes of fame are finally over.
Harry Reid is a lawyer, and two of his sons are lawyers; his money can buy more attorneys, and his position can buy him even more attorneys and they all knew that there was no case, but they let him believe that the almighty once Majority Leader U.S. Senator Harry Reid would win because he is God.
He lost the case because the jury did its job and told him to go home empty-handed; his wife did not help much either by saying that the incident has made her a caregiver and that she had disposed of the alleged defective equipment but the “honorable” family in court shows that his son, attorney Lief Reid, is the one who disposed of the equipment, showing a few discrepancies in the family testimonies.
The inconsistencies of the Reids’ testimony perhaps reminded the jurors of that famous accusation against one presidential candidate, Mitt Rodney, that he has not paid taxes, but when he was asked about it after the election that gave the American people Barack Obama, he cynically told the reporter “He did not win, did he?”
Reid testified that he looped a band through a shower door handle, not a hook, and that he spun around and fell face-first against hard-edged bathroom cabinets when it slipped from his grip on New Year’s Day 2015.
He noted that Reid at first said the band broke, not that it slipped his grasp, and that it had been attached to a metal hook in the wall of his Henderson home’s bathroom.
He said that the incident was one of the reasons for his retirement but later testified that his decision of ending his political career had nothing to do with the accident.
It was one lie after the other, probably including the wheelchair he used to wheel around the Regional Justice Center during the eight days the trial lasted, and I wonder if after losing the case he felt better and stopped using the wheelchair to walk around the UNLV working on his “new project.”
However, as I stated at the beginning of this column, not all is Harry Reid’s fault and he cannot be blamed for everything he does or says; those around him, those who directly or indirectly benefit from a Harry Reid name association, perhaps even making deals behind the old man’s back, which is very possible, may also be at fault.
Even before I was born in my native island of Cuba, my mother’s brother, my uncle, was a high-ranking military official assigned as assistant to the president and somehow he found out that one of his underlings was using his name to operate a business that could have made lots of money, but it was not exactly on “the up-and-up”; my uncle immediately dismissed that underling, notified the president and cleared his name, so — yes — I know that sometimes the underlings try to outsmart the public figure and make some money on the side that can be questionable, but I am not saying that that is the case with the Honorable (?) Harry Reid.
Harry Reid should realize that it is time for him to really retire and allow those who voted for and praised him all these years to keep the fantasy that he was a real honorable public servant.
My name is Rolando Larraz, and as always, I approved this column.
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Rolando Larraz is Editor in Chief of the Las Vegas Tribune. His column appears weekly in this newspaper. To contact Rolando Larraz, email him at: Rlarraz@lasvegastribune.com or at 702-272-4634.
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