Harry Reid is the Democrats' Alberto Gonzales

David Broder argues today that Harry Reid is to the Democrats as Alberto Gonzales is the Republicans. Someone that the rest of the party has to spend time defending for his amateurish performance. Republicans have been shaking their heads over Gonzales's proclamations of ignorance about what was going on in his own Justice Department. And Reid has been making regular verbal gaffes for a while. Broder reminds us of some of his aggressive statements about other politicians as well as his more recent gaffes that Democrats have had to twist and turn in order to defend.

Given the way the Constitution divides warmaking power between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, as sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow until a new president takes office.

To say that Reid has sent conflicting signals about his readiness for such discussions is an understatement. It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out for more than 24 hours at a time what ground Reid is prepared to defend.

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition -- defined by the Iraq Study Group-- that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader.

Oh, Senator Reid, it's pretty bad when you lose the support of the so-called "dean of Washington journalists," David Broder.

UPDATE: Check out Ed Morrissey's Five Myths of Harry Reid.