In yet another installment of the “New Tone Rules Only Apply to Republicans” series, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to accuse “Republicans” of using the payroll tax cut bill to extort the Democrat majority for the right to personally poison the American people.

Yes, you heard that right: the Senate Majority Leader took a page out of former Rep. Alan “Republicans want you to die quickly” Grayson’s (D-FL) book and delivered that accusation from the floor of the United States Senate.

Naturally, this came only two weeks after Reid called on both sides – the dirty, evil, water-poisoning Republicans and the good-hearted Democrats – to “achieve greater results for the American people.”

Video and transcript are below:

In exchange for extending this middle class tax break, Republicans are insisting, among other things, that we pass unrelated ideological legislation that will make our water less safe to drink. This would allow mercury and other carcigonens [sic] to be put in our water supply. That’s a pretty stark compromise. We’ll give you a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans if you will let us continue to put things like arsenic and mercury in the water of the American people.

I’d say that rhetoric like this is beyond the pale – which it is, of course – but the media and civility police (inasmuch as they’re different) are busy reserving their outrage for the next Republican “dog whistle” of a comment whose insensitivity and violent intentions only they can hear.