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Hotels | Shows | Concerts | Golf | Dining | Tours | Tickets | About Us | More Info | Contact | Buy Now | Links | Info Harry Reid gets buzz from Traffic cameo Las Vegas Mercury It's hard to conceive of the quiet, temperate Sen. Harry Reid stealing a scene in a movie, but there he is, talking drug policy and, for the briefest of moments in the new Steven Soderbergh film Traffic, the minority whip has the floor. Of course, no one else is talking, and it looks like the lead character, Ohio appellate court Judge Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), is getting drunk on actual scotch while listening to Reid's advice in the wake of Wakefield's nomination to be drug czar. Reporters don't care about education and treatment, Reid says, gesturing at an ill-dressed scribe nearby. They want to see people in jail, the gory aspects of the drug war. Oh, hell, Harry, jail ain't the gory aspect of the drug war. Random violence on city streets and in faraway places like Colombia, addiction to drugs like crack and heroin, illegal asset seizure and the all-out war on freedom--those are the gory aspects of the drug war. But who's quibbling? Reid's five seconds of fame in Traffic, combined with the buzz he's getting from appearances on shows like "Hardball with Chris Matthews," "Fox News Sunday," "Face the Nation" and "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer," could be leading up to a little gold statuette for Reid's mantel in the ornate assistant minority leader's office on Capitol Hill. Better yet, Reid could finally bust out of the image as a square guy who doesn't party that much by showing up for a stroll down the red carpet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in L.A. clad in an Armani tux with wife Landra on his arm. Hillary Clinton, Teddy Kennedy, John McCain, ha! They're yesterday, baby. Reid's tomorrow. As for the rest of Traffic, it's pretty good, although for a movie about the drug war, there was precious little gunplay (they did blow up a car). But by the end, after taking pains to show south-of-the-border official corruption, the promise of American youth deflowered at the altar of a drug high and murder and mayhem in the service of a drug trafficking ring, nothing has changed. The cops are still trying to keep drugs out of the country, the bad guys are still bringing them in, Washington, D.C., still wants its victory and people still get addicted and end up in 12-step programs. It's all the same. Sort of the like the real drug war.
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