Turning on the TV or radio earlier this week, prior to the tragic earthquake in Haiti, only one topic took center stage. Not that a republican is poised to take a senate seat in a liberal democrat stronghold, or that Congress is trying to hurry up and finish shoving health care reform down our throats.
No…everyone only wanted to talk about Democrat darling, Sen. Harry Reid and his gaffe regarding Obama. Liberal democrats were trying to convince us that Reid was actually complimenting Obama. Even members of the alleged black leadership were tripping over themselves to accept Reid’s apology. On the other side, republicans complained that democrats were hypocrites for previously damning Trent Lott, while Reid gets a pass by democrats and the media. And that they were going to hold their breath until they turned blue! Okay I made the last up...but it got close to that!
My first thought was: So, what did you expect? My second thought was how it was republicans who ultimately gave the senate leader the heave-ho, not the democrats. Not that democrats didn't complain--oh, they complained loudly. The decried how Lott's toast to Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday, was a sign the Mississippi Senator was essentially sympathetic to the equivalent of American apartheid. They conveniently forgot that in the early days when Strom made a pro-segregationist presidential run, Strom was a democrat. Just as Robert Byrd was once a member of the KKK. Democrats always conveniently forget which side their party was on when it came to slavery and later, "separate but equal" laws. After the 1948 election, Strom remained a democrat senator for 14 more years until switching to the Republican party in 1964.
But it was republicans who ousted Lott from his leadership position. They could have stood by him--just as democrats are supporting Reid, but they didn't. I have a strong hunch that most just didn't really care for Lott or had their own eyes on moving up the food chain to the speaker's seat.
Both Reid’s and Lotts’ statements were stupid and obviously not thought out. One could argue which statement was more damning: a toast made at a century-old senator's private birthday party or a comment made about then-candidate Obama on his electability based on his skin color and his dialect. Even worse Reid added he (Obama) could turn his dialect on and off to sound more or less black.
But my message to the republicans and conservatives is: Get over it. Let Reid's constituents decide in 2010. There are a LOT bigger fish to fry such as health care reform and cleaning both houses in 2010 and 2012. And don't forget we have cap and trade and immigration reform looming.
To the liberals and democrats who are trying to excuse Reid's remarks: Yeah, you're a bunch of hypocrites and you're not getting away with it as you have in the past. How any so-called member of the black leadership can say with a straight face that it's okay, because Reid was supporting Obama, or worse, that he was actually complimenting Obama--it's ludicrous. I suspect members of their respective communities are not quite so forgiving.
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