Frank Beckwith has the story here, with a link to there.
Basically, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader has shot off his idiot mouth once again. Harry Reid’s subtext was actually if Obama had been too “black,” America never would have elected him.
But Commenter “Jay” agreed on the face of it, that
It surely IS true that Obama would have had a much harder time getting elected if he spoke stereotypical Ebonics, just as a white candidate who sounded like he’d come straight from a trailer park…would lose votes on that account.
as did Commenter BSK, who noted that
Obama’s looks and diction may have played a role in his presidency (something true of all candidates)…
And that should be like, duh? to any denizen of the 21st century. If you can’t articulate the English language at least as well as the twits who read the 11 O’Clock News, you can’t be president.
OK, OK, George W, Bush couldn’t quite talk that talk and Sarah Palin could, but let’s move on, and also past Barack Obama’s relative “light-skinnedness,” which actually cuts both ways.
Because there’s a far more serious issue at hand here.
Reid’s use of “Negro” is unfortunate in this day and age, but I’m a generation younger, and I remember MAD Magazine referring to the “TV Negro,” who looked black but sounded like he went to Harvard.
Which—or who—Barack Obama is.
And there’s a PC flap right now over the 2010 US census, that in addition to self-identifications of “race,” “Negro” was kept in, as well as “Black” or “African American,” since some folks from Harry Reid’s generation prefer “Negro.”
But little of this, the word “Negro,” has anything to do with what’s important.
GOPers have some room for a righteous whine here, but not much: Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond
“I want to say this about my state: 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 all these problems over all these years, either.”
was substantive, not just a comment on Barack Obama’s cosmetic appeal.
Yes, it was rhetorical carelessness on Lott’s part. His retraction:
“My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.”
Yeah, yeah. But it went far deeper than that. When Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948, he was deeply committed to segregation and opposed to anti-lynching laws.
So the Republican Party can enjoy a “gotcha” moment on Democrat Harry Reid and on the press giving him a relatively free ride for violating political correctness.
But it’s a hollow victory, and indeed not a victory atall. Harry Reid mouthed some thoughtless words, but Trent Lott thoughtlessly gave voice to an abominable idea, that Strom Thurmond should ever have been elected president in 1948.
All stupidities are not created equal. Sadly, it’s just more evidence that when it comes to race, today’s GOP still doesn’t get it. Yes, Republican Ike sent in the troops to Little Rock to enforce desegration of our schools. And Sen. Everett Dirksen swung the day in 1964 to win passage of the Civil Rights Act.
But in 2009, The Party of Lincoln has few other laurels to rest on. It can’t even tell the difference between Reid’s stupidity and Lott’s. This has simply got to change.
You gotta walk the walk, but as a politician, you also have to talk the talk. When you speak an alien language like Trent Lott did that night, that Strom Thurmond should ever have been our president, even in loose party talk, you’re not speaking American atall.







