23 Comments

1. Chris  •  Jan 11, 2010 @2:25 pm
   

   I'm not so sure that the comparisons are accurate. Lott, who had a long history of this sort of thing, explicitly stated that the US would be better off if a segregationalist had been elected president. Reid used terminology I'd probably identify as racist when talking about how Obama could probably be president.

2. Scott Jacobs  •  Jan 11, 2010 @2:50 pm
   

   Gods no. I pray that Sen Reid retains his leadership position, if only because whoever replaces him might end up being competent.

3. Patrick  •  Jan 11, 2010 @4:39 pm
   

   Reid has a history of this sort of remark as well Chris. His comments about Thomas were inexcusable, not to mention false or the product of functional illiteracy.

   The man is an embarrassment.

4. vegas710  •  Jan 11, 2010 @5:26 pm
   

   I've only read the article you linked, Patrick, but how was that racist? The quote used re Thomas had nothing to do with race. Is there more to that than what was quoted there?

5. Dog's New Clothes  •  Jan 11, 2010 @5:35 pm
   

   Honestly, I'm not trying to flame or be needlessly provocative, but what's the really damnable part here?

   That he used the word negro? Sure, negro is an antiquated term that many would find offensive today, especially coming from an old white guy. But it's hardly the worst epithet in the world.

   I think the rest of my thoughts are echoed by John McWhorter: http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/reids-three-little-words-the-log-our-own-eye

   The comment may have been stupid and ill-considered, but its quite a stretch to call it racist. It's a bit more like the occasional cringe-worthy comment from a grandparent that's inadvertently racist (People don't say negro anymore, grandma).

   None of this should be considered a full-throated defense of Harry Reid, though. I, too, think the man is an embarrassment.

6. Patrick  •  Jan 11, 2010 @6:01 pm
   

   Vegas, to claim that Thomas (arguably the most original thinker on the Court) is a poor writer, which is not the case, and an "embarrassment" to the Court indicates that Reid hasn't read a single Thomas opinion…

   Or it indicates something else. I can read between lines, even if Harry Reid can't.

7. vegas710  •  Jan 11, 2010 @6:15 pm
   

   Patrick, maybe he's an idiot then but to call that racism is a stretch…a big one.
   As far as Reid goes, I like what Keli Goff had to say about it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/harry-reids-negro-problem_b_417870.html

8. Scott Jacobs  •  Jan 11, 2010 @9:51 pm
   

   Patrick, don't forget that the case for which Reid said that the Thomas opinion wasn't as good as the Scalia opinion was a case for which Scalia didn't write an opinion.

   @DNC: It isn't that he used the term "negro". Hell, the hair for blacks is- to this day – often called "negroid" by forensic scientists and the like. It's that the man said, flat out "we can get this guy elected because he doesn't sound black."

   Frankly, I think the Bill Clinton line is the most innocuous of the whole bunch because, let's face it, if you take the point in time that Bill said it, a few years before that Obama was a complete frigging nobody, and it was Bill Clinton and Teddy-effin'-Kennedy. There are actual Senators that would have sold close relatives to have the privilege of waiting on those two, let alone a state senator with less than a term in the State Assembly under his belt.

   People apparently forget that Obama was, before 2006, a nobody. He was a junior senator from IL who had flat-out stated he had no intention of running for the office (that he lied is neither here nor there).

9. Dog's New Clothes  •  Jan 12, 2010 @7:33 am
   

   Scott Jacobs,

   Well, is that really what he said? That “we can get this guy elected because he doesn’t sound black”?

   What he really said was that voters would be more willing to accept Obama because he speaks in a dialect traditionally used by non-African-Americans and because his skin tone is lighter on the wide spectrum of African-American skin tones.

   And you know what, that's probably true, unfortunately. More white Americans are probably willing to vote for a light-skinned African-American than a dark-skinned one. And more would be willing to vote for an African-American who does not use what people used to call ebonics, but what linguists call African American Vernacular English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

   Now, the fact may be disputable. I'm not sure how you could accurately survey Americans' feeling towards voting for a light-skinned vs. dark-skinned or standard English vs. non-standard English candidate, because most people are going to be unwilling to admit to any sort of racial prejudice. But I think that despite our best hopes, what Harry Reid said is probably true. I just don't see how it's racist.

10. Chris  •  Jan 12, 2010 @8:02 am
    

    And again, Lott didn't just drop an arguably racist statement – he explicitly said that we would have avoided all of our problems if we had supported Strom Thurmond in his segregationalist run for president. That's what got people upset.

11. Frank Zess  •  Jan 12, 2010 @8:36 am
    

    I still don't see how Reid's comments were racist. You aren't comparing apples to apples here at all.

12. Barry  •  Jan 12, 2010 @9:04 am
    

    And to show this isn't solidly political, Richard Steele, RNC head, stood up for Trent Lott but today demands Harry Reid resign.

13. Scott Jacobs  •  Jan 13, 2010 @1:05 am
    

    What he really said was that voters would be more willing to accept Obama because he speaks in a dialect traditionally used by non-African-Americans and because his skin tone is lighter on the wide spectrum of African-American skin tones.

    I like how you think there's a difference between 'voters will accept him because he doesn't speak with an accent and is light skinned' and 'we can get this guy elected because he doesn't sound black'.

    Because there isn't one. If Obama is qualified to be the president, it does not matter (at least, not to this former Conservative and current libertarian) what he (or she) looks or sounds like. That such calculations were a not insignificant factor in the Dem's machinations really is telling.
    

    And to show this isn’t solidly political, Richard Steele, RNC head, stood up for Trent Lott but today demands Harry Reid resign.

    And further proof that it isn't political, Lott was ousted from leadership by republicans, while finding a Dem to condemn Reid's remark would be an impressive feat (I can think of one off hand).

14. Barry  •  Jan 13, 2010 @8:28 am
    

    Reid was assessing a black man's ability to be elected, something he wanted to happen, while Lott (who was in trouble with the Republicans who dumped him) was praising a segregationist and lamenting that his bid for the presidency failed.

15. bw  •  Jan 13, 2010 @10:38 am
    

    So, there couldn't POSSIBLY be any other policy position of Thurmond's that motivated Lott's remarks? I could just as easily say that every time a Democrat endorses Byrd, it's BECAUSE of, rather than despite, his past KKK membership.

16. mojo  •  Jan 13, 2010 @12:25 pm
    

    So it all depends on how the remark is interpreted by the listener, rather than what the speaker meant? That's a mighty shaky standard, I'd say. Different listeners will inevitably have differing interpretations, all completely subjective.

17. Bob  •  Jan 13, 2010 @12:27 pm
    

    I am confused as to why acknowledging the existence of racism is being regarded as racist.

18. Charles  •  Jan 13, 2010 @12:49 pm
    

    bw: The heart of Thurmond's campaign for president was as a segregationist. All of "states' rights" was essentially segregationist. I refuse to believe that anyone can claim with a straight face that the motivating factor behind the Citizen's Councils was a heartfelt belief in Federalism as a constitutional principle.

    Scott: If Obama is qualified to be the president, it does not matter (at least, not to this former Conservative and current libertarian) what he (or she) looks or sounds like.
    Without personally impugning your sense of integrity, and accepting the accusation that I'm projecting, I don't believe that we are going to see a president with a strong "blaccent" any more than someone who speaks in Cockney rhyming slang will get named Prime Minister of England regardless of how you, personally, vote.

    Reid suffers from a man-in-the-mirror problem (as, I suppose, I do) in that he considers a noticeable black dialect a dealbreaker in national politics. I have no idea whether he, as I do, laments this. But who are the prominent black candidates who have been considered serious contenders for national office? Obama, Powell, Rice. Who are the prominent black newscasters? Shaw, Ifill, Gumbel, Gumbel. All of them speak in a measured, neutral voice. Not "white" – since Reid sounds different from Bush who sounds different than Palin – but neutral.

    As for Clarence Thomas, I think his negative reputation as a jurist is overstated (he espouses what I consider an untenable jurisprudence, but he is amazingly consistent about it), but he isn't a fraction of the writer that Scalia is. Not that anyone else on SCOTUS is in Scalia's class either.

19. Charles  •  Jan 13, 2010 @1:00 pm
    

    Don't know why I bothered. The McWhorter article posted by Dog's New Clothes said it a lot better than I did. I should have read it first.

20. Little A  •  Jan 13, 2010 @2:36 pm
    

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with some friends during the primaries where I said I thought the Democrats were wasting time with Clinton and Obama because Americans would elect neither a woman or a black man. I was not being racist or misogynistic. I was being truthful. And I was wrong. Happily wrong.

21. patrickkelley  •  Jan 13, 2010 @9:46 pm
    

    I hope Harry Reid gets his ass beat for re-election so bad I can taste it. If I wanted it to happen any more than I do I'd be having wet dreams about it. But that's beside the point. This was not a racist remark, this was just Reid pointing out the simple fact that, in his opinion, Obama would be more palatable to most white voters than a darker skinned black man, or one who talks like, say, Al Sharpton.

    And to a point, it's right. I still say it comes down to ideology. A conservative white man will vote for a dark skinned black man who speaks in "urban slang" over a light-skinned black man who talks like an educated while engaging and charismatic individual, but he will do so only on the condition that his conservative credentials are beyond dispute.

    But that is the average person. A person would be a blooming idiot to suggest that there are not a solid percentage of voters who would not vote for a black man if he floated down from heaven with a crown of thorns and a spear wound on his side. That is nothing but simple fact, and in a close election, such as has been typical in presidential politics during the last few cycles, a relative small percent of imbeciles can throw an election.

    Reid was just musing out loud about the political viability of Obama, and you can be sure he knows the political landscape of his own state. It's solid Republican, but with a growing Democratic base. In fact, I think Obama won there, if that tells you anything.

    Reid knew he would not win the white Republican vote, or pretty much any other Republican voter in Nevada that might exist, simply due to the party affiliation and the ideology. His concern was for Democrats, and especially probably the Latino voters, who I think, if I remember correctly, had previously supported Hillary in the primaries, for the most part.

    He was worried about them, and white Democrats, but he was confidant enough that Obama could win them over that he would not have to worry about that relative small handful of bigots throwing the state over to the McCain camp.

    And now that I've actually defended Harry Reid, I seriously think I might go drown myself.

22. bw  •  Jan 14, 2010 @10:43 am
    

    So, Charles, at the onset of the Cold War, with the Berlin Wall, Korea, and all the other things going on in the USA and abroad, you can't think of a single other difference between Thurmond's and Truman's policy positions that might have impacted the world we live in today? Keep in mind that had Thurmond been elected, he would have overseen foreign policy in an era that set the stage for, at the time Lott made his remarks, a crazed dictator on the verge of joining the nuclear club.

23. Charles  •  Jan 14, 2010 @2:29 pm
    

    bw: Thurmond ran an explicitly segregationist campaign. You can't wistfully wish that the campaign had been successful while distancing yourself from its motivating agenda.