Harry Reid: Hu Is a 'Dictator'

This should be good for international relations: On the eve of a lavish state dinner in Hu Jintao's honor, Harry Reid called the Chinese president a "dictator." The Senate majority leader made the comment in a televised interview last night, reports Politico, when asked if the bipartisan tax deal was a good one for America. Reid took an unusual route in explaining the compromise: "I am going to go back to Washington and meet with the president of China. He is a dictator. He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have."

Backpedaling a bit, he noted, "Maybe I shouldn’t have said dictator, but they have a different type of government then we have ... so we have to work in the system we have. And one of the few ways we get things done, in fact the most important way we get things done, is through compromise. It’s not a bad word, and that is how we get things done." (More Hu Jintao stories.)