Harry Reid created a frenzied storm amongst the Beltway bloviators when he made these remarks:

"This is the message I took to the president," Reid said at a news conference. "Now I believe myself ... that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, of Nevada. "I know I was like the odd guy out yesterday at the White House, but at least I told him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear," he added.... Reid said he did not think more U.S. troops could help. "I think it's failed, I say that without any question," he said of the troop increase.

Some have questioned his rhetoric and his choice of words, calling it a gaffe. But what if Reid had carefully chosen his words? What if his intention was to spur debate, or even further, to forward the debate beyond the question of this supplemental funding bill and the squabbling over it?

The situation we face now is, as Paul Krugman describes in his NYT column tomorrow:

a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.... The whole situation brings to mind what Abraham Lincoln said, in his great Cooper Union speech in 1860, about secessionists who blamed the critics of slavery for the looming civil war: "A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ "

Perhaps what Reid is doing is trying to create awareness that President Bush is holding our troops hostage in Iraq for a lost cause, the Iraq war. Harry Reid obviously can read a poll. And the polls are saying, as William Schneider points out (via Atrios), that the American people want the occupation of Iraq to end.

SCHNEIDER: Do Americans believe the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq? Last month they said no by better than two to one. Do Americans believe the U.S. will win? No. Do Americans believe the U.S. can win? The public is split. They're not sure. So Reid said -- REID: But there's still a chance to change course and we must change course. SCHNEIDER: Which side does the public take in this standoff? It's not even close. Sixty percent of Americans say they side with the Democrats in Congress, thirty-seven percent with the president.

Harry Reid knows this, and is laying the groundwork for the inevitable confrontation with Bush over Iraq. As Krugman says:

Everyone talks about the political risks of confrontation, recalling the backlash when Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in 1995. But there’s a big difference between trying to force a fairly popular president to accept deep cuts in Medicare — which is what the 1995 confrontation was about — and trying to get a deeply unpopular, distrusted president to set some limits on an immensely unpopular war. Meanwhile, there are big political risks on the other side. If Congress responds to a presidential veto by offering an even weaker bill, voters may well react with disgust, concluding that the whole debate over the war was nothing but political theater. Anyway, never mind the political calculations. Confronting Mr. Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty.... If nothing is done to wind down this war during the 21 months — 21 months! — Mr. Bush has left, the damage may be irreparable.

Maybe what Harry Reid is doing is his job as Senate Majority Leader. Maybe Harry Reid is forcing the Iraq debate into what the pundits will call politically risky territory because it's where the debate has to go. Maybe, Harry Reid is doing the bidding of the American people, and his patriotic duty, and is trying to lead the way out of Iraq.