I rather like Harry Reid's Sam Giancana look.
And with it has come some muscle, which Capitol Hill's more traditional mobsters abhor. From the party that loved Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's extortions and knee-cappings: "[Harry Reid] is controlling the agenda. And he probably will control the agenda if we don’t change the rules."
Speaking was Alabama's Sen. Richard Shelby, paladin of caprice and lawlessness, both of which, of course, he detests in Reid — and, it should go without saying, President Obama. When Democrats practice strong-arm politics they're tyrants; when Republicans practice it they're God-fearing, America-loving, Constitution-abiding patriots.
I try not to make too much of political hypocrisy, since the two-word term is reducible to one: politics. There are certain behaviors peculiar to both minority and majority parties — always have been, always will be — and virtue has nothing to do with them. The behaviors are dictated by status, which shifts, often according to electoral whim. Hence what is virtuous today (e.g., the filibuster) could easily be maleficent tomorrow, meaning it was never really virtuous in the first place — just expedient. Hence hypocrisy. Hence politics.
But, Republicans have a way of flaunting this inescapable core of politics — i.e., the art of hypocrisy — that chills the epidermis and makes it downright crawl. They're just so bloody brazen about their hypocrisy … well, it gives it a really bad name. From Molière we once had "Tartuffian" to describe the most wretched of hypocritical decadence. Until Republicans rejoin the merely standard-issue hypocrites, I suggest Molière be revived.