U.S. Sen. Harry Reid has been pretty much presiding over a Congress that is doing everything but find a way to get American troops out of Iraq. (We’re going on the assumption that this is a goal, given that the Democrats finally won a national election in November.) After months of talking about war plans that do everything but end the war in Iraq, it seems Reid is finally coming about.

Not only did the Senate majority leader say he’d endorse a bill that calls for troop withdrawal and eliminating war funding by the end of next March, he also called President George W. Bush on his "support the troops" bullshit, to wit:

"As the president knows, the Democrats have done more than he has for the troops. We’ve provided money for extra body armor. We’ve made sure the troops have everything that they need and we’ll continue to do that. The purpose of the confrontation we’re having … is for the president to change course," Reid said.

It’s odd that a man — who himself was pretty good at dodging even safe stateside National Guard service in a time of war — can be considered a troop "supporter" when he started an unnecessary war and allowed it to be waged poorly and without planning. Bush’s version of supporting the troops is curiously fatal indeed. Kudos for Reid for pointing that out.

» So former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone is super sorry about the greed that led him to bribe people. He rationalized his behavior, he says in a letter of apology sent to the Review-Journal.

The thing is, if he hadn’t been caught in the FBI’s Operation G-sting investigation, the motherfucker would still be passing out envelopes of cash on behalf of Mike Galardi’s strip-club empire. So, call us callous and unforgiving, but we think Malone’s remorse is mostly of the sorry-I-got-caught variety.

Oh, and it’s not like he’s so overcome with grief that he’s not appealing his eminently lenient six-year jail sentence, either. Ass.

» We knew it would happen, but we’re still amazed that it did. Gov. Jim Gibbons did something right. (Hey, it’s newsworthy, people!) Gibbons came out against toll roads, unless there was a free alternative for motorists. So, you can build a toll lane on the freeway, but you can’t make the entire freeway a toll road.

Gibbons is right to be suspicious of toll lanes, touted by folk like Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Dennis Nolan as a tax-free alternative to traditional road-building. But what Nolan is really saying is it’s a politically risk-free alternative to standing up and telling people that they can’t have something for free. Hey, senator, just try pretending the state Transportation Department is one of the big corporations that contribute to your campaign. That should make defending them go down a little easier.

» Quotable: "It’s time the self-appointed strategists on Capitol Hill understood a simple concept: You cannot win a war if you tell the enemy you’re going to quit." — Vice President Dick Cheney

Quotable: "It’s time the draft-deferring chickenhawk vice president understood a simple concept: You cannot win a war if you pick the wrong war to fight in the first place, lie about how you got there and are proven wrong on nearly every single statement you’ve ever made on that war." — Us at Various Things & Stuff

» Some people are saying that state Sen. Steven Horsford’s bill to create a commission to oversee developing poorer areas of North Las Vegas is political payback for Mayor Michael Montandon, who put $80,000 up against Democratic Assembly candidates in 2006. "This is not even a slippery slope. That is a quick dive off a steep slope," Montandon whined.

And they’re right. It is payback.

Not for political contributions, however. It’s payback for the fact that Montandon and the City Council haven’t done enough for those poor areas. Which means somebody has to step up, and in this case, it’s Horsford.

The only surprising thing about this story is that Montandon had money left to give out, after all the political money laundering he did last year.