The book Game Change
:Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, a behind the scenes tome of the 2008 Presidential campaign which will be released tomorrow, quotes Reid in a private conversation assessing Senator Barack Obama's chances for election as follows: “The nation was ready for a black presidential candidate, especially a ‘light-skinned’ African-American like Obama ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’ ”
When the comments became public, Reid called the President and other black leaders to apologise and issued the following statement:
"I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments"
This American thinks he was sincere in the first quote and is offended by the apology.
Is telling the truth about racial distinctions racially insensitive? Bryant Gumbel blew the secret about "light skinned vs. dark skinned" racism/elitism in the black community years ago.
Is "Negro" the N-word lite?
Obmama was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia. Of course he doesn't speak in a Negro dialect unless he wants to. If he picked up such a dialect while a community activist for ACORN in Chicago, good for him. It is a tribute to his oratorical skills.
Reid was right in 2008.
Republicans like Michael Steele and Liz Cheney who are characterising Reid's remarks as racists and similar to Trent Lott's 2002 remarks about Strom Thurmand are wrong about Reid and foolish to bring up Lott. They should stay on message about health care, cap and trade and the economy.
Other gems from Game Change
include NY Senator Chuck Schumer and other senators privately boosting Obama and undermining Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, that Obama did not bring VP candidate Joe Biden into his inner circle during the campaign (good move), and that Bill Clinton remarked to Ted Kennedy that Obama would have been serving Clinton and Kennedy coffee a few years earlier. The former President's remark is said to have pushed Kennedy into the Obama camp.
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3 comments:
THIS IS outrageous. Reid should be tarred and feathered. An apology will not do.
President obama is not light skinned.
the entire point is, had it been ANY Republican with these poor choices of words, (including those of the former "Buffoon in Chief," Billy-boy),they'd be tarred, feathered, hung, then run out of town and hung in effigy from the dome!..any voter, who until now hasn't understood the ever-increasing double-standard of the Dems and media, really ought to get it, finally!
Great,
Let the Dems have their double standard. I can't stoo[p that low
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