Reid Gives President New Nickname: 'Chilean Miner

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) raised eyebrows last month when he called Delaware Senatorial candidate Chris Coons his "pet." Now Reid is employing another odd analogy: President Obama is like a Chilean miner.

During a Saturday rally in Las Vegas, MSNBC reports, Majority Leader Reid said that when Obama replaced George W. Bush as president he found himself in a "hole so deep that he couldn't see the outside world."

"It was like the Chilean miners," Reid said, "but he, being the man he is, rolled up his sleeves and said 'I am going to get us out of this hole.'"

Reid has been known to fumble over presidential descriptions in the past. The book Game Change quoted him saying that then-candidate Obama could be successful because of his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

UPDATE:

Thanks to Mediaite, we now have video of the event: