Harry Reid, Bill Clinton, and what they said
January 13, 2010
Last week we learned what Harry Reid and Bill Clinton really think about people of color and the nation is in a tizzy about racism again. Here’s what they said, according to the book Game Change:
Granted, the quotations do suggest a degree of racism within the Democrat Party but is that really a surprise from the party of the Ku Klux Klan and the party that filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1964? It certainly isn’t worth the amount of discussion it’s receiving on television and radio.
The real story here is the flabbergasting stupidity on display. “Negro dialect?” Who says something like that? What kind of Leave-It-to-Beaver time capsule did Harry Reid step out of that he uses the word “Negro” in the first place, let alone strings it together with “dialect”?
Mark Twain lived in the nineteenth century, made himself famous writing believable American dialects, and even he probably never used the words “Negro dialect” in a sentence.
Incredibly, Harry Reid made this idiotic comment to a group of reporters and not one of them—not one—thought it was worth mentioning to their readers… which leaves us wondering not only about how out of touch our senators are but how out of touch our journalists are.
(Here’s a riddle for you: what do you get when you send out-of-touch journalists to cover out-of-touch politicians? Answer: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.)
Meanwhile, Clinton thinks Obama should be restricted to the job of waiter. Presumably because he’s black although when comments reach a certain level of stupidity their translation becomes problematic. Only Clinton can know for sure what he meant and he’s unlikely to be crystal clear on the matter—after all, this is a man still unclear about whether he had sex in the Oval Office.
Sooner or later he’ll pick a friendly reporter and try to explain his coffee comment to the American public. One can only imagine the headache-inspiring miasma of political doubletalk and side-stepping involved in that interview.
It’s hard to accept that people this out of tune with American culture are repeatedly elected to high office—we’re talking about the senate majority leader and a former president, for God’s sake. I’m fifty six years old and there’s been no time in my lifetime when normal people would say “Negro dialect” or relegate black men to the job of waiter. How did Reid and Clinton manage to avoid for six decades any meaningful or edifying contact with the world in which the rest of us live?
And how stupid are we for electing these cumquats?
From Reno, Nevada, USA
Harry Reid said Barack Obama made a good presidential candidate because he is “light skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”Just like what happened in the Henry Gates affair which I wrote about last July in a column titled “Pipsqueak leftist pseudo-intellectual phony” (my favorite title so far), people are missing the point. This is about class and the elitism of the D.C. establishment, not race. Trouble is, once somebody utters the word “racism” our national IQ seems to diminish and everybody starts sounding like Al Gore in a climate documentary—self-righteous, bloviating, borderline hysterical, and dumb.
Bill Clinton, also talking about candidate Obama, was trying to convince Ted Kennedy to endorse Hillary when he said, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”
Granted, the quotations do suggest a degree of racism within the Democrat Party but is that really a surprise from the party of the Ku Klux Klan and the party that filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1964? It certainly isn’t worth the amount of discussion it’s receiving on television and radio.
The real story here is the flabbergasting stupidity on display. “Negro dialect?” Who says something like that? What kind of Leave-It-to-Beaver time capsule did Harry Reid step out of that he uses the word “Negro” in the first place, let alone strings it together with “dialect”?
Mark Twain lived in the nineteenth century, made himself famous writing believable American dialects, and even he probably never used the words “Negro dialect” in a sentence.
Incredibly, Harry Reid made this idiotic comment to a group of reporters and not one of them—not one—thought it was worth mentioning to their readers… which leaves us wondering not only about how out of touch our senators are but how out of touch our journalists are.
(Here’s a riddle for you: what do you get when you send out-of-touch journalists to cover out-of-touch politicians? Answer: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.)
Meanwhile, Clinton thinks Obama should be restricted to the job of waiter. Presumably because he’s black although when comments reach a certain level of stupidity their translation becomes problematic. Only Clinton can know for sure what he meant and he’s unlikely to be crystal clear on the matter—after all, this is a man still unclear about whether he had sex in the Oval Office.
Sooner or later he’ll pick a friendly reporter and try to explain his coffee comment to the American public. One can only imagine the headache-inspiring miasma of political doubletalk and side-stepping involved in that interview.
It’s hard to accept that people this out of tune with American culture are repeatedly elected to high office—we’re talking about the senate majority leader and a former president, for God’s sake. I’m fifty six years old and there’s been no time in my lifetime when normal people would say “Negro dialect” or relegate black men to the job of waiter. How did Reid and Clinton manage to avoid for six decades any meaningful or edifying contact with the world in which the rest of us live?
And how stupid are we for electing these cumquats?
From Reno, Nevada, USA
January 13, 2010 - I've never thought of Obama as "light-skinned," either. I've always thought of him as a white liberal. That's really who he is, what he was born to. He was raised by the heroine from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," a liberal elitist who was, typically, above marrying an American and residing in the states. - Katherine B., Reno
January 13, 2010 - I love President Obama and I think he is an outstanding leader, however, I do not consider him a light skinned black and I'll bet most Black, Afro-Americans don't consider him light skinned, either. There are so many shades of color in the black community, why does "brown skinned" now need to be light skinned? - Brenda T., Ohio
January 13, 2010 - I love President Obama and I think he is an outstanding leader, however, I do not consider him a light skinned black and I'll bet most Black, Afro-Americans don't consider him light skinned, either. There are so many shades of color in the black community, why does "brown skinned" now need to be light skinned? - Brenda T., Ohio
