WASHINGTON — Lest you think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going soft after a tough year in Congress, two stories today remind that the guy once described as someone who would kneecap the opposition remains in top form.

First, The New York Times reports that notwithstanding Reid’s appearance alongside Bush at today’s energy bill signing ceremony, the Nevadan’s “visceral dislike” of the president is one for the history books:

Washington, of course, can be a blustery, hot-tempered town. But not since 1919, when Henry Cabot Lodge called Woodrow Wilson “the most sinister figure that ever crossed the country’s path,” has a Senate majority leader appeared to harbor such deep and utter disdain, even loathing, for a president, as Mr. Reid does for Mr. Bush.

Then, Reid made the year-end top 10 list of most memorable quotes — beating out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s assertion that gay people don’t exist in his country, but falling behind a college student’s “Don’t tase me, Bro” which secured the No. 1 spot.

The list reported by Arthur Spiegelman via Fred R. Shapiro at the Yale Book of Quotations has been zipping around this morning. The Reid-ism that landed him at the No. 7? Not the one you might be thinking of (“This war is lost.”)

Rather Reid earned the honor for the one-liner he hurled after Vice President Cheney made a rare press appearance outside the Senate to criticize the majority leader’s war-is-lost comment.

“I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Reid said.