Loser

The problem with having a conscience:

In the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington's top Democrat gave the 60 juniors a lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. "The man's father is a wonderful human being," Reid said in response to a question about President Bush's policies. "I think this guy is a loser.

"I think President Bush is doing a bad job," he added to a handful of chuckles.

"He's driving this country into bankruptcy," Reid said, referring to the deficit. "He's got us in this intractable war in Iraq where we now have about 1,600 American soldiers dead and another 15,000 injured."

Republican National Communications Director Brian Jones issued a statement calling the senator's comments "a sad development but not surprising from the leader of a party devoid of optimism, ideas or solutions to the issues people care about most."

After the statement was released, Reid phoned the Review-Journal to acknowledge he thought he crossed the line.

"You know the president is in Europe, probably sleeping," Reid said in an interview this afternoon. "But I called (Karl) Rove and apologized for what I said."

(Via Penndit via The Daou Report.)

See, this is what the problem is with this whole situation. Reid says he thinks the president is a loser because he’s presided over a spiraling fiscal crisis and a disastrous war into which he led us on false pretenses, resulting in lots of death and injury to both Americans and Iraqis. Loser is perhaps one of the nicer things one could have said about someone with that record, yet he calls to apologize to the great and powerful Oz Karl Rove as soon as it hits the papers.

The GOP comes back with a litany of charges against the Dems about their lack of optimism, ideas, and solutions, which is patently untrue. The amendments they offered to the bankruptcy bill alone (which were summarily rejected by the GOP) showed optimism about the American people’s use of credit and addressed the reality that most bankruptcies are a result of problems outwith people’s control, and were both reasonable and compassionate ideas and solutions to make the bill less punitive for those who are forced into bankruptcy for reasons such as medical costs, death, or divorce, as examples. So, a bald-faced lie from the GOP, but because it didn’t contain any easily identifiable pejoratives such as loser, no apology will be forthcoming.

And, by the way, I’m still waiting for an apology for using $70 million of taxpayer money to go after the Clintons for being “crooks” and “murderers” and turning up no evidence of either. As regular Shakers know, I’m no apologist for the Clintons, but that was a witch hunt of outrageous proportions, irrespective of the targets’ political party, and the waste of resources was unconscionable. But no apology.

Those are, apparently, only required of Democrats who commit the grievous sin of calling a spade a spade. Or, a loser a loser.