First, I've never been too wild about Reid. Don't like his attitude nor demeanor. And I especially don't like that he is a supporter for life of the 1872 mining bill. His sponsors in NV would have it no other way.

However, what he said was clumsy but correct. White America is not going to vote for someone who sounds like Al Sharpton for the next several hundred years. Certain aspects of Af. Am. dialect are just aggressive and obnoxious (see hip-hop). Many people have noted that Obama's English delivery had a lot to do with his success.

But whattayaknow, Rrs are saying that it's about the same as as Trent Lott's remarks on Thurmond.

Reid was voicing support for the first successful Af.Am. candidate for POTUS, albeit clumsily and with foot in mouth. Lott was waxing nostalgic for and singing the merits of a day when Negrahs was kep' out of our churches, our schools, and our swimmin' pools. Oh yeah, Thurmond would have kept this country in line, you betcha. Thurmond, oddly enough, didn't say anything about keepin' Negrahs out of our beds.

Reid used the word Negro in an entirely flat sense. Just to describe a manner of speaking that is well known. His remarks were clumsy but true. Limbaugh, author or not, used the "Magic Negro" phrase to sneer. Not even close.

What's really on display here is some of the Rr talking heads -- Sens. Kyl and Cornyn -- removing any doubt as to their intellectual honesty. It's pure partisan bickering, grasping at any remote similarity to triumphantly prove moral equivalence. Thurmond should have been shunned by anyone with an ounce of sense. Says a lot about SC voters that they couldn't show him the door while still breathing.

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