The Hill points out that on the Senate floor this morning, Majority Leader Harry Reid made a plea that his colleagues return to their “gentlemanly ways.”
“I’ve said to a number of people, Rodney King: ‘Let’s just all try to get along,'” Reid said.
“I said when the Senate opened today and I’ll say again because of the long hours we’ve spent here for weeks now, there’s a lot of tension in the Senate,” Reid said. “And feelings are high. And that’s fine. Everybody has very strong concerns about everything we have done and have to do.”
“But I would hope that everyone would go back to their gentlemanly ways and I would hope that — I was trying to figure out how to say this,” Reid said, before making his Rodney King remark.
Reid isn’t the first politician to invoke Rodney King, who famously asked, “Can we all get along?” after the 1992 Los Angeles race riots sparked by the acquittal of police officers who beat King.
In October, RNC Chairman Michael Steele argued on Fox News that his party wasn’t obstructing the health care debate.
“I’m not trying to be an obstructionist here. To the contrary, I’m saying, Can we all get in the room and have a Rodney King moment?” Steele said.
