"I think he should be a commander in chief and not a campaigner in chief. This whole administration can't get out of the campaign mode," the Nevada Democrat said late Tuesday.

"Let them start governing a little bit. They are great at campaigns. Bush's brain, (White House chief of staff) Karl Rove, is a very good campaigner."

Reid, who has sharpened his criticism of Bush over the past month, said Bush's stubbornness is apparent not just in his refusal to budge on the war in Iraq "but on everything we do."

[. . . ]

"I made it as far as I have by not being a partisan, but right now I have a job to do," said Reid, who was elected to the Senate in 1987 after serving two terms in the House.

"It's hard for me to be always nagging ... I like to get along. As I've said, I'd rather dance than fight. But the American people have been pushed against a wall and I'm fighting for them," he said.

Reid recalls how Bush declared upon his first election in 2000 that he wanted to be "a uniter, not a divider."

"That's Orwellian because it has been just the opposite," the senator said.

(thanks to skadi at And, yes, I DO take it personally...)