Who's The Bigger Racist? Who Cares!

It was revealed this week that Harry Reid made a choice comment about Barack Obama back in 2008 during the Democrat primary.

Reid described Obama as a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Republicans immediately went on the attack, dredging up the Trent Lott fiasco of 2002.  Reid immediately apologized.  The Democrats immediately absolved Reid of his sins.  The Republicans kept on whining.

This whole "scandal" is a sham.  The Democrats didn't attack Trent Lott in 2002 because they thought he was a racist.  They attacked him because he made a comment they could exploit for their own political purposes - and it was no surprise, really.  Democrats just love to throw around the race card, and inevitably, the Republicans then wait for their opportunity to throw it back.  The problem for the Republicans is that the Democrats' PR machine has been much more effective at branding Republicans as racists, which means that Republicans' attempts to play the race card typically end up coming off as clumsy and stupid.

The big issue is consistency.  When Trent Lott made his comments, the Democrats and the media went into an uproar, demanding that Lott apologize.  After he apologized, the Democrats and the media demanded that he resign from his leadership position.  Lott apologized again...and again...and again...and even went on the cable network BET to apologize yet again...but it was to no avail.  He finally bowed to the media pressure and resigned his leadership position.

When Reid's comments came to light, he immediately apologized, and that apology was immediately accepted by Obama, the Democrats, and the media at large (with the exception of conservative talk radio and possibly FOX News).

Personally, I care as much about what Reid said as I did about what Lott said, which is to say that I don't give a damn!!!  The Democrats will always play the race card first, because it is one of the few strategies they have that actually works (some of the time) when they can't argue logically about the issues (which is most of the time).  When Republicans start going on about the Democrats' double-standard, they just end up making themselves look stupid.  They look stupid to Democrats because the Dems don't care about their opinions anyway, and they look stupid to conservatives because we're smart enough to know that the Dems don't care and aren't going to change...and there's no chance in hell that Harry Reid is giving up his power until either he dies, or the Democrat political machine decides he's no longer useful and offers him some sweetheart retirement deal.  Should the Democrats be consistent?  Yes, they should.  If Lott's comments were bad enough that he disqualified himself from leadership, then Reid should step down, as well.  But instead of bloviating about it until the public is sick of hearing about it, Republicans should voice their opinions for one day, and then start working on ads for the election...because honestly, no matter how offended the Republicans act, the vast majority of voters won't remember this incident come election day.