Having been under the weather for the past few days, I emerged into one of the more bizarre "debates" I've heard in the media in a long time. Harry Reid's a racist? He insulted Obama? Really? Even if you read his faux pas in context ?
Someone agrees. Sort of.
Tripping over his own tongue is SOP for Reid. But calling for him to step down? Let those voters he so casually denigrated handle it. He's toast in November.
He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.Yeah. His comment was insulting, all right. But it wasn't Barack Obama he was insulting. He was insulting me. And you. And every voter in this country. Maybe the insult was justified and the voters lived up to his low expectations. Maybe we are all too bigoted to vote for an African American who looks and sounds more like an African American. And maybe the Democrats' white guilt did induce them to nominate a presidential candidate on the basis of race. But, accurate or not (I think the jury's still out), it was an insult, directed at the American people (not the candidate) from an awfully high and mighty moral ground. You're not going to hear Senator Reid use that as an excuse, of course.
Someone agrees. Sort of.
Tripping over his own tongue is SOP for Reid. But calling for him to step down? Let those voters he so casually denigrated handle it. He's toast in November.
