Harry Reid is a small, pitiful man. He just happens to inhabit a rather large role. And it's well beyond his abilities.

In one sense it's sad. He's so far out of his depth that things like this indicate he's just foundering about. It was a stupid, careless thing to say. There are no meaningful upsides and a whole set of powerful downsides to saying something like that. Again, a sign that he's just a lost soul.

It was not stupid and careless, but utterly indicative of his fundamental approach to politics. It was the essence of Harry Reid, who is quite simly trash. As you say, Don, he's a small man. But pitiful? No, because he's so powerful. If Bush had any guts, he wouldn't let him darken the threshold of the White House. But apparently such a response is only for Tom Tancredo, a patriot who dares to disagree with the president on immigration -- and do something about it.

If we pity the Harry Reids of the world as "lost souls," we can't fight them effectively. Politics is not an arena of personal relationships. It is a struggle between right and wrong. Pitying Harry Reid as a human being, even if it may have a psychological and spiritual truth to it, gets us less than nowhere in terms of politics, and politics is where this man is doing great damage.

From dictionary.doc ... the second definition for the word "pitiful":

evoking or deserving contempt by smallness, poor quality, etc.

That's what I meant by the use of that word. I don't take pity on the man because he's exactly where he has invested his life to get. My use of the term "sad" is is because he's a man so clearly out of his depth, and while I do not like his politics or, for that matter, the man (from what I now of him) ... it is still "sad" to watch such a "pitiful" display.

Reid might well be "trash" as you say. My original point was that when a politician achieves the level Reid has, everything said carries with it potential positive and negative consequences. Saying that Pace was "incompetent" can't possibly work to his favor in the broader scheme of American politics. Perhaps worst of all, it invites an appraisal of Reid and his own competence. And when one does that, one finds Reid lacking himself.

Poor political calculus.

"Poor political calculus"?

You are somewhat too optimistic about the intelligence of American voters, and far too optimistic about the degree to which the mass media keep them informed.

Nope ... not too optimistic on either score. I still maintain it was a foolish comment. Tom Daschle would have never made such a mistake. Nor would Mitch McConnell.

Here we go again - absolutely never, under any circumstances, dispute the criticism. Instead demolish the critic.