When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) makes comments so offensive that even liberal media outlets denounce them, it's a bad, bad day.
Last Tuesday, Reid told the Huffington Post that Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes in ten years. Thursday, he repeated the allegation on the floor of the Senate. Source: an anonymous individual with ties to Bain Capital. Veracity: uncertain, according to Reid. In journalism, we call that a story that's "too good to check," but unlike Reid, we go ahead and check it anyway.
A week later, Reid hasn't backed down, but he's increasingly finding that he's fighting this one alone. On Aug. 1, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, an unabashed liberal, weighed in on the scandal. While the Comedy Central host couldn't resist a few extraneous digs at Fox News during the segment, the majority of his monologue was dedicated to scolding Reid.
"Here's a rule of thumb: if you have to follow your claim with the words, 'I don't know if that's true,' then shut up," Stewart said. "...You, Harry Reid, are terrible."
Stewart also went after Reid's baseless and ugly claim that Romney's father, George Romney, would be ashamed of him, updating Reid's description to "really, really terrible."
The full clip can be seen below.
But there's more! The Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes that Reid is a "jerk," employing harsh rhetoric to describe the senator's baseless and tawdry attacks.
"For Reid, this is yet another brazen and tasteless partisan attack. As majority leader, he has managed to sink the public image of the Senate even lower than it would otherwise be," Cohen writes. He contributes to bad feelings, gridlock and the sense ??? nay, the reality ??? that everything is done for political advantage. Reid is a crass man, the very personification of the gaudy and kitschy Las Vegas Strip."
White House spokesman Jay Carney spoke up too on Monday, saying Reid was on his own with his baseless claims.
The conservatives don't have to do a thing here: the left-leaning are doing their job for them.
But don't fear, Sen. Reid: you still have one staunch supporter. Former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the Huffington Post Sunday that yes, some guy did tell Reid those things about Romney. Solidarity...for now.
