Reid's multi-part mistake

When the Democratic leader of the Senate called President Bush "a loser," he made an error not just of style but of strategy.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who previously called Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan a "political hack," spoke Friday to students at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. During an otherwise properly critical assessment of the president's policies, Sen. Reid responded to a student's question by saying: "The man's father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser."

That was a mistake on many levels. That sort of talk-radio belch is beneath Sen. Reid, as it was when then-Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney called Al Gore a "loser" as the former vice president conceded the 2000 election, which he knew he had lost because of voter error. Only after the Republican National Committee criticized Sen. Reid's remark did he call White House political adviser Karl Rove to apologize.

Moreover, that throwaway line allowed the RNC to divert attention from the content of Sen. Reid's message. GOP Communications Director Brian Jones referred to the "leader of a party devoid of optimism, ideas or solutions to the issues people care about most." In fact, anxiety over the president's "solutions" have his approval ratings at personal lows, and those "solutions" were the target of Sen. Reid's comments. "He's driving this country into bankruptcy," the Las Vegas Review Journal quoted Sen. Reid as saying. "He's got us in this intractable war in Iraq."

Right on both counts, and there is enough to debate about policy without getting personal, even if the president presumes that strong policy criticism amounts to personal attack. Final point: Mr. Bush is anything but a "loser" when it comes to politics. If he were, Sen. Reid would be the majority leader.