Unless you were in Siberia this past weekend you have heard the hysteria amongst GOP operatives relating to statements made by Sen. Harry Reid regarding candidate Barack Obama.  However, in case you were visiting the arctic region here is a recap.  In the new book Game Change, by veteran political reporters Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the authors quote Sen. Reid, in the context of encouraging Obama to run, opining as to why he believes that then candidate Obama has a very good chance of winning the Democratic nomination and the presidency.  Reid referred to Obama being “a ‘light skinned’ African-American ‘with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one’” as assets and attributes that work in his favor with respect to winning the nomination.  Reid has since apologized twice for his bizarre choice of words but the GOP, and most notably Michael Steele and Lynn Cheney, says an apology is not enough and Reid should step down because Trent Lott was forced to step down as leader based on comments he made about Strom Thurmond in 2007.  At the time Lott lamented about Thurmond’s loss of the presidency in 1948 when then Dixiecrat Thurmond ran on a segregationist platform.

Lott: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.

Yeah, that’s the same.  Sen. Harry Reid praising and encouraging the first viable presidential candidacy of an African-American and the former senator Trent Lott longing for the days where blacks and whites were kept separate and blaming integration of the races for all the woes that America has suffered as a nation.  Exactly the same.

Yes Sen. Reid’s words were clumsy and unfortunate and no I have not heard any person under the age of 100 use the word “negro” in describing black folks.  However, the substance of his statement, in my opinion, is accurate.  Few would disagree with the conclusion that if Barack Obama had been a dark-skinned African-American who spoke similar to President Bush or with a strong dialect similar to that of Lil Wayne that he would not be President right now. 

So GOP operatives there is no double-standard and the only people that you are convincing that the statement was racist are yourselves. 

President Obama made a the following statement regarding Reid’s comments: 

“This is a good man [Sen. Harry Reid] who has always been on the right side of history.  For him to have used some in-artful language in trying to praise me and for people to try to make hay out of that makes absolutely no sense.”

We agree Mr. President.