Harry Reid's evaluation of Barack Obama as a Presidential candidate has generated almost no buzz beyond the political enthusiast class. Should it?
He is quoted in "Game Change" by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann:
"light skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one".
I am underwhelmed. This is simply a paraphrase of Joe Biden's comments about Barack Obama being a bright, articulate good-looking and 'clean'. That blurt elicited its own chorus of murmurs, and for similar reasons--politicians are deathly afraid of giving even the slightest offense to the 'black people'. One has to appreciate the irony of so many pimp-posers and gang-bangers getting their feelings hurt by a couple of old, white Democrats. Add to that the comic relief of the Rev. Sharpton making the rounds of the news programs in his James Brown pompadour.
Yeah, that Barack Obama sure is different alright. At no point do you worry about the possibility that he'll mug you or accuse you of raping a black girl.
Reid and Biden are just stating what a lot of white public relations people have been telling black professional athletes for decades--wear a suit, don't get a tattoo and sound like you've been to a few University English classes. Michael Jordan was the original articulate, clean black man, and we rewarded him for not scaring us with hundreds of millions of dollars. Tiger Woods perfected the game (and I don't mean golf) until the scab got ripped off his scam. Corporate America just doesn't have all that much use for playahs and pimps.
On the other hand, Harry Reid should have resigned for his clearly racist attack on Clarence Thomas as a functional illiterate.
While being interviewed on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on December 5, Senator Reid was asked about the possibility of Justice Thomas replacing current Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is currently being treated for thyroid cancer. Reid called Thomas "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court" and said his "opinions are poorly written."
I'll defend Reid on the recent comments because they are clearly harmless. The irony is that one could not expect quid pro quo from Reid or his political allies. As Ann Althouse commented at the time of his Clarence Thomas slam...
Legal scholars are not as critical of Justice Thomas' legal prowess as are liberal politicians and activists. Commenting on liberal criticism of Thomas' jurisprudence, University of Wisconsin Law Professor Ann Althouse wrote: "It is my observation that liberals tend to lapse into the lazy belief that those who don't agree with them must be stupid or evil, and to me Reid's remarks look a bit like that... I realize the senators can't get away with opposing a judicial nomination on the grounds that they simply disagree with their opinions... but to attack Thomas' intelligence is shameless."
