What’s that line about repeating a lie until people believe it? Ask Harry Reid.

Many other people have written commentary about Senator Harry Reid’s statement on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Reid essentially repeated a tired mantra that Democrats use to accuse Republicans of being racists. John Fund at the Wall Street Journal called his bluff:

Historians also faulted Mr. Reid’s curious reference to the Senate civil rights debates of the 1960s. After all, it was Southern Democrats who mounted an 83-day filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The final vote to cut off debate saw 29 Senators in opposition, 80% of them Democrats. Among those voting to block the civil rights bill was West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who personally filibustered the bill for 14 hours. The next year he also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate, and indeed preceded Mr. Reid as his party’s majority leader until he stepped down from that role in 1989.

The final reason Mr. Reid’s comments were so inapt and offensive is that the battles for women’s suffrage and civil rights he referred to were about expanding freedom. That’s not what the 2,074-page health care bill being debated in the Senate today does, with its 118 new regulatory boards and commissions. Mr. Reid may reach his needed 60 votes to pass his bill this month, but he is pursuing it using the most tawdry and deplorable of tactics.

Understandably, Majority Leader Reid is flailing around in a fit of desperation. He’s currently lagging behind both Republican challengers, and the defeat of the Democrat Majority Leader in the next election cycle would devastate Senate Democrats – it’s looking more and more like a reality every day.