What an awful piece of reporting from Mike Allen and Jake Sherman regarding the Harry Reid kerfuffle. Here's the hysterical, GOP-friendly headline [emphasis added]:

Democrats launch counterattack to save Harry Reid's career

So Reid's “career” is now teetering on the brink, and if Dems don't' scramble to “launch” a “counterattack” he's doomed. How does Politico know? Because the GOP says so!

Oh brother.

As we noted yesterday, if you look at the facts on the ground inside the Beltway right now, the Reid story, at this moment, isn't going anywhere. Meaning, not one single prominent Democrat or African-American leader has come forward to fault Reid for the semi-controversial comments he made about Obama during the 2008 campaign; a campaign in which Reid supported the election of the country's first black president.

So my question to Politico is this: How is Reid's career in need of saving if nobody within the party is challenging it? Last time I checked Republicans were helpless in terms of forcing out Democratic leaders, which means the RNC and the GOP Noise Machine can yell and scream all they want and demand Reid stop down. But in terms of practical matters they don't have a say in Reid's standing among Democrats. Republicans are powerless.

But not inside the Politico newsroom, where the minority party is suddenly the the one that really matters.

UPDATED: Behold, as Politico offered up a laundry list of supposed Reid verbal faux pas over the years:

He called President George W. Bush a “loser,” Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment” and Bill Frist, his predecessor as majority leader, “amateurish.” He referred to Alan Greenspan as a “hack.” And he had to backtrack after saying the U.S. was “losing” the war in Iraq.

Boy, that Reid is just crazy.