Reid couldn’t play the race card and call them racist, because that just wouldn’t fit. So, he calls them terrorists, when all they did was show up on the side of the Bundys.
Reid is laying a foundation to demonize them. He needs something to use for cover when (not if) similar situations occur in the future.
On the initial threads he [Reid] had a lot of help from members of the forum in demonizing Bundy. One of them was zotted, one disappeared, and one changed his tune. Anyone interested can pull up the old threads and read the posts.