Harry Reid's Puzzling Move

Harry Reid has people on both sides of the aisle mystified:

Despite calls for bipartisanship -- most notably in an unceremonious retirement announcement by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will not allow amendments to a jobs bill he substituted last week in place of a popular measure that had won across-the-aisle support.

A spokesman to the leader told Fox News on Wednesday that Reid will allow tax provisions in subsequent legislation passed after his $15 billion Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, which Reid swapped in to replace an $85 billion bill crafted by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Reid jettisoned the Baucus-Grassley bill in a surprise move that provoked bipartisan head-scratching and even a bit of outrage. Disdain for the process by which Reid offered his replacement measure put the leader on the defensive, and Reid was forced to call the Senate's newest Republican, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and others to try and win votes for his pared down, incremental bill.

But Republicans are at a loss about why the majority leader bailed on the first bill, and they’re unlikely to be pacified by efforts to reach out on his measure.

"I just don't get it," a senior Senate GOP leadership aide told Fox News. "Reid is literally snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory here."

The problem is the bipartisan bill was...well, bipartisan. There was stuff in there that Republicans liked and wanted, but the liberal left supporters of Reid didn't want, so he pulled the bill. Chances are now that the whole thing will be defeated and the Senate won't have anything to show for all that bipartisanship.

This just goes to show you - to Democrats bipartisanship means agreeing with their policies and doing what they want. It doesn't mean you get anything YOU want.