Props to my colleague Erin Neff, who penned a fine piece today wondering what would happen if U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the master of Democratic surrender to Republicans, suddenly gets a veto-proof, cloture-invoking 60 seats in the upper house.

Will Reid use that majority to champion a progressive agenda? Will he punish wayward U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman for helping Republicans? Will he end offshore drilling, Yucca Mountain, tax giveaways to big corporations, illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens and — the granddaddy of them all — the Iraq War?

Or will he find another way to give in to the Republican agenda, another excuse for why those things are too hard to accomplish, especially given the fact that he himself will have to stand for election in 2010?

It’s like the old saying goes: You can roll a giant pair of balls into the Senate chamber, but you can’t necessarily make the Democrats use them.