Harry Reid: typical old-time politico

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is calling for the head of Michael Chertoff.

Chertoff is the director of the Dept. of Homeland Security, so he's an easy enough target these days. But what is Reid's beef?

Not enough DHS pork for Las Vegas.

DHS revised its grant rules this year to put more emphasis on helping communities that have the farthest to go to improve their security against terrorism. Last year Las Vegas received $8 million, which even in today's watered-down dollars is still a chunk of change. That is, of course, if you actually spent the money for what it was intended.

Las Vegas received $8 million in 2005 through such high-threat funding to purchase a spectrometer to detect chemical agents, special clothing, chemical response vehicles, handheld computers for emergency personnel to communicate, a bomb robot and a bomb armored vehicle, according to the Clark County Office of Emergency Management.

Reid is trying to claim that Chertoff does not recognize Vegas as a high risk area. (High risk, that is, in terms of being a terrorist target; not high risk in terms of losing your shirt while gambling.)

That isn't the point, and he well knows it. But Reid won't shut up until Nevada voters decide they've had enough of his oral flatulence.