Harry Reid "Forgiven" for Racially Charged Remarks

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being forced to offer apologies for remarks he said in 2008 about then candidate Barack Obama's race. Harry Reid referred to Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

The racially charged remarks are related in a new book "Game Change" which was written by Time Magazine's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann. The revelation comes at a time when Harry Reid is still faced with a contentious battle over health care reform. Harry Reid, who is running for reelection for the Senate in Nevada, is behind in the polls in match up against all of the possible GOP rivals and his favorabilities are in the 30s.

Some observers are already comparing Harry Reid's racially charged remarks to those of past Republican politicians, such as Trent Lott and George Allen, and are noticing a slight difference in the reaction to them.

In 2002, then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said that he wished that then Senator Strom Thurmond would have been elected President when he had run as a third party candidate in 1948. Thurmond at the time of his Presidential run was a fervent segregationist. As a result Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Senate Majority Leader.

George Allen used the obscure French colonial word "Macacca" to refer to a journalist of Indian descent while running for reelection for the Senate. The media uproar was so great, particularly from the Washington Post, that George Allen lost his bid to now Senator James Webb and the prospects of Allen becoming a Presidential candidate were dashed.

The reaction of Harry Reid has so far been just a little muted. Both Barack Obama and Al Sharpton, the latter usually relied upon to jump all over a white person saying racially insensitive things, have "forgiven" Harry Reid. There have been no calls in the media, so far, for Harry Reid to resign his Senate seat or to step down as Senate Majority Leader.

That is not to say there will not be some reaction to Harry Reid's racial remarks. Conservative talk radio is almost certain to be upon the issue like a wolf on the fold, pointing out the contradictions between the gentle treatment Harry Reid is getting now and what happened to Trent Lott and George Allen. When Trent Lott had made his inopportune and belated endorsement of Strom Thurmond for President, then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama called upon Republicans to deal with Lott harshly.

But that was then and this is now. And Harry Reid is needed in the Senate to pass health care reform. If he were to be forced out as Majority Leader or, worse, forced to resign from the Senate, there would be naught but catastrophe. And that must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances.

Sources: Reid apologizes for 'no Negro dialect' comment, Philip Elliot, AP, January 9th, 2010

Harry Reid: Obama ' Light Skinned' 'With No Negro Dialect', Mike Flynn, Big Government, January 10th, 2010

Sharpton Backs Reid, Ben Smith, Politico, January 9th, 2010

Obama in '02: 'The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott', John McCormack, Weekly Standard, January 9th, 2010