“No one should feel sorry for me,” Reid said in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon during a preview of a clean energy summit he’s hosting there Tuesday, even as his incendiary remarks about Romney have turned the GOP magnifying glass onto himself…

Republicans have also made veiled and not-so-veiled hints that they’re prepared for an extended public discussion of Reid’s own finances.

Bring it on, Reid said.

“All you have to do is go look. I file every year, every stock trade, every piece of land I buy, all the money I have, it has the value of my homes, it’s got it all there,” Reid said. “So this is really a way to divert attention.”

Senator Harry Reid’s decision this week to hurl a taunting, unsubstantiated accusation at Mitt Romney is hardly out of character for the cantankerous Democratic leader of the Senate, who revels in provocative comments and once called Mr. Romney “kind of a joke.”

On a personal level, Mr. Reid has long been publicly contemptuous of Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee and a fellow Mormon. In 2008, he said Mr. Romney would have been “a tremendous drag” on the Republican ticket. Last year, he said Mr. Romney “doesn’t stand for anything.” And in the last month, he has said that Mr. Romney could not be confirmed as a dogcatcher or a cabinet secretary.

But Mr. Reid’s latest series of tart-tongued volleys — in which he cited an unnamed source who claims Mr. Romney has not paid taxes for a decade — have generated more than the usual outrage from his Republican colleagues and from Mr. Romney himself, who on Friday spent a second day condemning the remarks.

“Harry Reid really has to put up or shut up,” Mr. Romney said as he campaigned in Mr. Reid’s home state, north of Las Vegas. “I have paid taxes every year, and a lot of taxes, a lot of taxes. So Harry is simply wrong, and that’s why I’m so anxious for him to give us the names of the people who have put this forward.”

The testy exchange between the two men is the latest manifestation of the broader Democratic strategy to highlight Mr. Romney’s wealth and offshore accounts as the party’s leaders seek to disqualify him in the eyes of middle-class voters. The Republican candidate has refused to release more than two years of his tax returns, prompting sarcastic television ads from President Obama and his allies.

The outcome of the Democratic strategy could hinge on its ability to keep the pressure on Mr. Romney. In a statement Friday, Mr. Reid, who has provided no evidence to back up his assertions, said that Mr. Romney’s message to Nevada voters was: “He won’t release his taxes, but he wants to raise yours.”

Mr. President, Senate members: that’s not true.

The legislative maneuvering played out against a backdrop of public outrage, as the Capitol switchboard became jammed and visitors swamped congressional Web sites, apparently heeding a call Obama made Monday in a prime-time national address for Americans to contact their representatives in Congress.

At the height of the deluge, the Capitol was receiving 40,000 calls per hour — twice as many as normal. Some people encouraged lawmakers to stand firm, others demanded a resolution to the weeks-long stalemate that threatens to undermine the sputtering U.S. recovery and damage the nation’s global standing. Still others were simply worried that the impasse could prevent their Social Security checks from arriving on time.

Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for Sen. Tom Harkin, said the Iowa Democrat’s office had received more than 700 e-mails and letters overnight, the majority of which “expressed frustration with the debt process and said that we should reach a compromise.”

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is in the news. He’s still under fire for remarks he made about President Obama’s blackness. Sources say he could face Congressional censure or, even worse, be promised The Tonight Show at 11:30.

‘Negro.’ You know (how) you say some words over and over again and they lose their meaning? This isn’t one of them.

Everyone knows (Republicans are) good at national security. Exactly the same reason Harry Reid gets a pass on his racial insensitivity - because everyone knows the Democrats are good at black people.

To be honest, I’d like to say I was trying to be funny or create some bipartisanship. But I was just in dreamland, thinking about where we had come. Some said ‘oh bipartisanship or trying to be funny.’ It was neither quite frankly. It was just, I am bushed. And I don’t mean George Bushed.