The Harry Reid Obama gaffe
Washington Times:
Using the term Negro should not be considered a racial slur. I can remember when it was considered the polite term for people of that race. In the 60s and 70s there was a movement to black and then African-American to describe people of that race. Blacks made some sense, because Caucasians were called whites.
African-American was an invention of Jesse Jackson and sometimes leads to ridiculous statements. One of the sillier statements was by a member of the faculty of an Africa-American studies program who described Cleopatra as "African-American." That would have been sill even if she was black, but in fact she was the last of a Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt.
Yeah, I know if a Republican had said the same thing as Harry Reid Democrats and the race hustlers would be calling for a resignation. But, we already knew they were hypocrites on the race issue. They will be unembarrassed to attack Republicans again should they make such a gaffe.
As gaffes go this one was classic in that it used what were deemed inappropriate words to express something that was essentially true. I do not think Reid will suffer much from it, because unlike the Trent Lott affair his party is rallying to him. Even with Trent Lott it took conservative bloggers to make the issue important enough to finally drag him down. So far I have not seen much from the left in terms of seeking his resignation.Democrats on Sunday rallied to the defense of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from a political firestorm caused by his newly reported remarks during the 2008 presidential campaign describing Barack Obama as "light-skinned" who chose to speak "with no Negro dialect."
"I think if you look at the reports as I have, it was all in the context of saying positive things about Senator Obama," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine. "It definitely was in the context of recognizing in Senator Obama a great candidate and future president."
Mr. Reid apologized to Mr. Obama on Saturday, and the president issued a statement accepting the apology and saying he considered the matter closed.
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Using the term Negro should not be considered a racial slur. I can remember when it was considered the polite term for people of that race. In the 60s and 70s there was a movement to black and then African-American to describe people of that race. Blacks made some sense, because Caucasians were called whites.
African-American was an invention of Jesse Jackson and sometimes leads to ridiculous statements. One of the sillier statements was by a member of the faculty of an Africa-American studies program who described Cleopatra as "African-American." That would have been sill even if she was black, but in fact she was the last of a Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt.
Yeah, I know if a Republican had said the same thing as Harry Reid Democrats and the race hustlers would be calling for a resignation. But, we already knew they were hypocrites on the race issue. They will be unembarrassed to attack Republicans again should they make such a gaffe.
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