Any progressives who have felt bile rise in their throats during previous public struggles of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will likely get a kick out of this post on the conservative blog Red State, in which Eric Erickson proves quasi-eloquently that the right has as many problems with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as the left has with Reid.

But No. 4 on Erickson's list of complaints about McConnell is the most interesting: is the Republican leader really "not fighting Reid on throwing [Sen. Tom] Coburn off the Judicial [sic] Committee"?

There would be ample cause for Reid to try to punish Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who makes a habit of gumming up the Senate works to slow down what he deems excessive government spending. Coburn's quests to delay routine bills -- last year the number topped 100 -- tend to be lonely, but his efforts on the Judiciary Committee have made him a conservative darling.

So it would be a major story if, as The Hill reported last week, Reid tried to cut the number of seats on the judiciary panel in an effort to knock off Coburn. But that's not the case.

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Caroline Kennedy is picking up support in her quest to grab Hillary's Senate seat from none other than the Dems' Senate leader, Harry Reid.

Reid privately told New York Governor David Paterson, who will pick Hillary's replacement, that he backed Kennedy.

"Senator Reid called Governor Patterson a week or so ago to voice support for her," a Senate leadership aide emails. "He thinks that she would make an outstanding senator."

It's unclear how or whether Reid's backing will impact Paterson's thinking.

Late Update: Reid himself explains his thinking in an interview set to air tonight:

"She's 52 years old. I've spoken to her. She was part of a vetting process for vice presidential choices for Obama. She's lived in government and politics her whole life. I think it would be a tremendous thing...We have a lot of stars from New York. Bobby Kennedy. Hillary Clinton. I think Caroline Kennedy would be perfect."

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) laced into Harry Reid for disputed remarks about General David Petraeus in a statement:

“The fact that Democrat Leader Reid would stoop so low as to insult our top military commanders in an attempt to gain political points with his liberal blogging friends is outrageous. The debate about this war has gone into the gutter when the Democrat Leader of the United States Senate uses ‘disparaging remarks’ to describe our military leadership. Generals Pace and Petraeus are two honorable men who have performed admirably under the most challenging of circumstances. These combat-hardened soldiers have both served their nation with distinction throughout their military careers. To sling political mud at these two men who are not part of the political arena is cowardly."