Way to go, Blue! A headline backed up by verifiable facts.

Logrolling infomercial for Game Change that is MSNBC today continues…

Red’s history in his next election. The smart play would be for DEM’s to toss him now before his electoral defeat and elect a Majority Leader from a solidly Blue State. Naturally the DEM’s will do the dumb thing and stay in Reid’s corner to the bitter end.

Yeah, but what Harry Reid said was creepy and I won’t go to bat for the noodle-spine. Who in heaven’s name uses the word “Negro?” Did he just crawl out from behind a 1950′s pink livingroom couch? Ick.
He’s no Trent Lott, but he’s obviously no great civil rights leader, either.

Read the Coates link.

That peculiar feeling of standing up for Reid is eclipsed by the faces in this picture, and what they stand for.

Big, white tent.

Who in heaven’s name uses the word “Negro?”

Old people, like Harry Reid’s age group. It’s the polite word they learned long ago. Harry has never been verbally adept; he probably uses lots of outdated expressions. Using the word “Negro” is way, way, way different from saying Strom Thurmond as president would have improved modern America

.

he’s obviously no great civil rights leader, either.

He wasn’t speaking as a civil rights leader; he was speaking as a practical pol assessing an individual’s chances as a candidate – and he said it in the context of encouraging the subject of the sentence to run for president!!!!

I just don’t understand how people who call themselves liberal cannot see the giant qualitative difference between the two.
Thank you, BT for pointing out the absurdity.

Just ’cause we don’t think Reid is a great majority leader doesn’t mean we should join in the ridiculousness of hypocrisy of the Repub calls for his scalp on this issue.

OT Andrea now reading about Elizabeth Edwards…ick, ick, ick.

Andrea, have you no shame?

Or are you like the Quinn of Tarts rolling gleefully in the salacious stew of this muck?

Since when has the truth limited the Right’s propaganda? It is up to Democrats to defend themselves and to call liars liars when that’s what they do.

False comity is political suicide for the Democrats. The real thing is mutual and we haven’t seen that for nearly two decades.

Negro was the word that MLK and Malcolm X used, it was the polite word from the 1960s, replaced by “black,” and then “African American.”

The real racists in the south use to take the word “negro” and make it more racist by pronouncing it “nigra,” taking care to preserve the consonant-vowel ending but with enough sound of the vowel-consonant ending to get the point across.

You have to ask about Andrea? No, she has no shame.

It’s fast becoming a lost personality trait among anyone employed by the tradmed. Their standard has become the one used by the reporter in Die Hard: whatever it takes to get on camera.

Andrea, have you no shame?

Or are you like the Quinn of Tarts rolling gleefully in the salacious stew of this muck?

No, and Yes.

This has been another in a series of simple answers to ……
*g*

Trumka speaking at NPC on cspan. I just tuned in at the end, but he took a strong swing at how disappointed labor was with Clinton & are not gonna be fooled again.

Great post, BT! Can we identify the other bigots in the photo and connect them with anything?

Hey, eCAHN – OT

Saw your note at Caturday yesterday – you know the thread stays open through Tuesday? SD checks it regularly as long as it’s up; so do I. (*g*)
Did you have a story to share?

I do understand the difference completely. I am an older person, and I know many people older than me, and none of them ever use that word.
Yes, there’s a big difference between Harry Reid and–God-forbid–Strom Thurmond, but that doesn’t make what Harry Reid said right. We can always compare someone like Reid to someone worse than Reid, but I refuse to defend Reid.

SD pointed that out this morning so I added a comment. No cute cat stories from last week, but I’m hoping she’ll do something good this week.

Despite the 1950s language (Negro) what Reid said is, unfortunately, right on point. Let’s not forget, and let the media forget, that Reid’s statement is an indictment of much of white America. The GOP reaction to this is a crafted “diversion” response designed to keep that same white (conservative) America from the spotlight of truth.

Remember? all the “angry black woman” BS directed at Michelle Obama, who is a bit “darker” in complexion than her husband, despite the fact that she is smart as a whip, graceful in style and very accomplished.

ain’t that the truth

I agree. I’m no fan of spineless Harry Reid, but in this instance, I feel I have stand up for him. As I stated on a blog yesterday, what Reid said was politically incorrect & insensitive. However, Reid belongs to an older generation where the term Negro was more than acceptable and in no way considered denigrating.

Rachel Maddow had a couple of episodes on her shows last week about how the 2010 census is still using the term Negro as an identifier, mainly because older generation AA’s often identify themselves that way and have gone so far as to write in the term on prior censuses. The census has stated, btw, that it plans not to use the term in 2020, but they believe a certain portion of older AA’s still identify themselves this way.

Younger AA’s probably find the term abhorent, and I don’t blame them for that. But take a deep breath and take this in context. Harry Reid can be blamed for many things, but falling into the knee-jerk reaction trap here is unmerited in this instance. If progressives wish to see Reid primaried or kicked out of the Senate or whatever: fine. But find another solution. Don’t sully yourselves using this a the reason.

Lani Guinniere (sp??) has commented in a similar fashion today that all Reid was doing was speaking factually about BHO and using terminology familiar to his generation.

Reid’s commentary has almost nothing in common with Trent Lott’s. Please: a sense of proporation and balance is merited here.

yes, but the fact remains, harry reid is a racist asshole. as a brown person, i resent him saying that someone with ligt(er) skin and no “Negro dialect” has a better chance of becoming president. f7ck harry reid and the horse he rode in on.

the republican racist credentials do not need to be established. they have a “southern republican conference” where the only “colored” speaker is bobby jindal.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/11/southern-republican/

i guess he’ll be making the speech in his white hooded robe.

Here’s the video of Trent Lott endorsing Thurmond’s world view

O/T: Dingbat Watch…

I think it’s impossible to determine if a person is racist based on one statement.

true. however, there are many who say “that was not harry reid’s personal view. he was just expressing what he thought was the fact.”

really? how do they know it wasn’t his personal view?

Reids actual remarks, while politically incorrect, weren’t racist. If anything, what they suggest is that he believes race matters.

Everyone knows most whites harbor prejudice towards blacks; that’s why you need racial preferences.

Harry refused to use reconciliation to get ordinary people a real health bill. He said that’s how it is, he’s not going to do it, period, case closed, get lost, go away.

Harry, you can go to hell. I hope you lose your job, the sooner the better. That’s how it is, not going to defend you, period, case closed, get lost, go away.

While your spine has turned to jelly, the bones in those greedy graft-hooks at the end of your arms work just fine.

That’s my point, they don’t. And neither do you.

Andrea who? Oh. Mrs. Greenspan. Lost me there for a second.

Shame? MSM personality married to former Fed Chairman? Um…Nope.

BT, great choice to link to Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Posters like whataretheysmoking should read TNC’s post AND the comments, many of which are from African-Americans (who in case you don’t know, is also African-American). Great discussion there. A large number mention that their older relatives (black relatives) use the term “Negro”, and even “colored.”

They also seem quite able to distinguish between supporting a racist who ran on a platform of racial segregation, and a politician making a political, non-personal assessment of another politicians chances of winning an election.
At the risk of repetition: Reid never said “only a light-skinned Negro without a ‘Negro dialect’ type of speech SHOULD run for president.”

Can you really not see the difference?

okay, i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. he’s just a garden-variety bigot then.

Quick! Don’t you see what is happening! They’re trying to make a martyr of Harry Reid! Circle the wagons! Do something to help him!

YAWN. Relax. He’s on his own. No need to do anything. Just look at this as a dress rehearsal for the next election. He deserves his enemies and he deserves to be thrown out of office.

At the risk of repetition: Reid never said “only a light-skinned Negro without a ‘Negro dialect’ type of speech SHOULD run for president.”

reid could have said: “he is light-skinned and has no African-American dialect, and hence he could win. that’s sad, but that’s the way it is.”

but he didn’t.

can you really not see the difference?

a politician making a political, non-personal assessment of another politicians chances of winning an election.

so i can make racist observations and claim i’m just making a non-personal assessment? didn’t know it was that easy.

Headline sure could create a false impression of whom you’re writing.

Contessa Brewer will be adding to the ick factor. Time to walk the dogs. What I clean up there epitomizes what needs cleaning up on cable tabloids.

as a brown person, i resent him saying that someone with ligt(er) skin and no “Negro dialect” has a better chance of becoming president.

Very, very respectfully, some people with a whole lot less political acumen, and possessed of better hearts than Harry Reid, pondered Obama’s race as a purely political matter. All you need to do is look at voters in particular states, and regions within states, to determine why.

If Reid had used race to, say, decide the worthiness of someone to hold office, instead of weighing their viability in a political context (which I believe Reid was doing, but YMMV), it would be easier to apply a label beyond ‘crass political player’ to Reid.

goopers push so much BS that the media picks up. it would be hard to pick the most absurd.
this is it, or close to it.
not a racist comment.
an observation about politics, which is actually true and made IN support of OB running for President.
Reid also has impeccable credentials on the race issue.

Now who is really surprised that Republicans are affiliated with racist or even fascist front groups?

what they are smoking is a troll. if he/she/it were talking truth it would be one thing. but he/she/it is bending truth. the comments by Reid were an observation.
does anyone think Reid was saying he would vote for OB or that OB was fit to run because he was light skinned and could speak in dialect when he chose to.
just laughable.
as they say at eschaton:
Please
Ignore
The
Troll

PITT

Harry Reid is from a different generation that internalized many racist stereotypes. It’s time for him to retire so that he can sit around wearing his magic underpants and rock and whittle on his front porch.

Good link from BT’s Morning Swim, too, to Sandy Banks, another African-American blogger explaining it all from her point of view.

Her wrap-up:

Either Steele is playing politics with a combustible case, or he thinks Americans are so incapable of thinking intelligently about race that we can’t tell the difference between Lott and Reid. Now that offends me.

I’m out.

Ahhhh, so that’s what PITT means.

I’m pretty good at interpreting internet acronyms, but being female, perhaps I was distracted by the mental image of B.R.A.D. P.I.T.T.
(that’s a joke, btw)

I remember a time when the Left was taking a pick-axe to the Bush administration for credentialing a prostitute with no journalistic background to the White House beat. And do you recall the Republican backlash? Claiming that Democrats were Gay-bashers.
Never, ever trust the premise.

It doesn’t matter if it was racist or not. These fuckers are going to go to the mat on everything they can. Why else would this bitch Liz Cheney get involved. Attack attack attack.

The New York Times reports that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been signed as a contributor to Fox News.

The network confirmed that Ms. Palin would appear on the network’s programming on a regular basis as part of a multiyear deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.

reid is stupid (what’s new there?), but what really offends me is that everyone here and on other sites think this type of “political observation” is par for the course. i thought it wasn’t. it just surprised me. but i guess these politicians (democrats included) shouldn’t surprise me any more.

Reid should not have said this but I doubt that he is a racist. Dumb? Yes. LIving in the 19th century- yes. working above his pay grade – definitely yes.

The only pick-axe was wielded by the blogs. The corporate media was completely silent on the fact that the Bush Administration used a gay plant masquerading as a journalist. The White House press whore corps is a very tight group of pretend journalists.

so go away

Everyone knows…

WTF! Where do you live? Who is this guy “Everyone”?

i will. goodbye.

If you are arguing that we should live in a race and gender and religious-blind society, I don’t think you would get any arguments here.
If you are arguing that politicians should ignore that which they believe makes political sense, and that political sense is the same as societal justice, you have lost me.

Race is unfortunately, no less a criteria in a political context, than ideology or religion or gender. It is unfortunate, infuriating, and an actual thing.

It is why Bernie Sanders could never run a Senate race in Kansas, and why Keith Ellison could never run a House race in Utah.

And yeah, it sucks.

Yeah, which is why I distinguish between Democrats and, as I phrased it, “the Left”.

Even for Fox, this is an outrageous development.

Faux, a self-parody. I think it’s pretty funny.

Raven! I missed the pay-grade promotion? I thought you were nice and smart.
I know a lot of vets go into security, but I thought better of you and you are an educator.

In some respects I agree with you, but, if it were to serve as an effective platform to assist Palin in gaining the GOP nomination in ’12, I think it would be something less than funny.

When you’re dealing with an electorate that responds poorly to people with dark skin and/or accented speech, such evaluations are indeed par for the course.

Just because racism is (still) a political fact DOES NOT MEAN it can somehow magically become constitutional.

She’d be great to run against in 2012.
1. Tina Fey
2. Quitter

I have no talent in making up campaign slogans or ads, but those just write themselves.

Oh, and ditto that re: gay rights.

These are first principles.

Back long, long ago, say back in the 1940s and the 1950s, the REpublican Party used to stand up for civil rights for all Americans. Slowly, they grew tired or bored with the equalitarian (sic) notion. By 1968, the big switch of the southern racist dixiecrat Democrats into the Republican Party was underway.

In the 21st century, the remaining Republicans are racist, fascist, corporatist and imperialist.

The GOP’s Uncle Tom, Michael Steele, will soon be deposed by the REpublicans. His stupidity and his insanity are not good, even for the GOP…

Probably, but given that the damnedest things do happen, I am not willing to risk it. That is why I am always for the opposition party running their best candidate.

I don’t believe we could weather a Palin Presidency.

I don’t believe we could weather a Palin Presidency

Got that right.

I dunno too much about Harry Reid but I do know a fair amount about the Lottster. He’s a racist pig. And if Trent ever wants to stop by for dinner, I’d feed him the same bullshit he fed the American people. He misrepresented himself as a Congressman as so many of these “Family” members do. They are ideological cretins doing the work of Satan. I’ll see you in hell Trent.

Earlier, you said I was lucky to be able to go down and hear it. What a waste of gas that was. I’m not lucky. It’s all BS. Nobody cares.

Yes, I saw your comments on Teddy’s thread, which I have open on another window. I am not commenting there because, frankly, the testimony leaves me speechless. Lump in my throat during the plaintiffs, angry & not believing the stupidity of the defense.

Joe Biden’s previous remarks about Obama’s race and diction sure crippled his political trajectory:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/

Heh. The wonders of the toobz. Thanks.

Not being a watcher of the tube of boobs and really not caring to look up the video or it’s context, this tempest in a teapot seems to typify how often a nonevent is converted into the next mind-numbing stupid problem of the hour. Ramp up mercenaries working for the military and the CIA all the while ignoring that to focus on stupid stuff like whether Reid is racist. Does anyone remember the freezers being bent out of shape because Ted Kennedy was a racist? These guys keep playing everyone else for chumps. A real racist doesn’t waste time talking in code words like “Negro dialect”. There are a wide range of code words that have been used, mainly by the newly indignant right that would suffice.

Reid is a poor Senate leader, massively compromised in the lobbyist department and has done little that I approve of but anyone saying that his words, as transcribed, are harmful or racist must have been living in a cocoon for the last 40 years. You want offensive you can probably talk to a cross-section of your favorite relatives about social issues. People say goofy things all the time when they are hunting for words. As was already said, if people want to point to political or personal actions that show a pattern of racism then there is room for complaint. Even then the question remains as to why only Democrats are to be held responsible for their every faux pas.

I suspect that as she keeps moving around in the public eye we will see more stories about her rehabilitation to smart cookie status. Reagan proved that if you keep doing the same thing over and over you can wear the other guys down, even if you are really old. She just needs to play are very serious person over and over on TV until it sticks.

Does anyone remember the freezers

Man I have to get someone else to type for me.

Does anyone remember the freezers freepers

Otherwise, the GOP needs to STFU with this “Harry Reid is just like Trent Lott” BS.

Considering their “track record,” don’t they also need to STFU with regard to, oh I dunno; national security, the economy, civil rights, education, health care, transportation policy, terrorism, torture, the U.S Constitution, women’s rights, gay rights, the Voting Rights Act, Social Security, separation of church and state, executive powers, the filibuster, AIDS, taxation, diplomacy, anything having to do anything with the natural sciences, ……………..

Well, I guess in short they should just STFU, period.

Stand up for Harry Reid? Like he did for us with the public option and reconciliation? I wouldn’t piss on Ol’ Geriatric Jellybones if he was on fire.

But then what would the characters have to talk about?

Reid is a jellyfish, no doubt, but c’mon, this is hype over nothing. He stated a truth within a political context: A light-skinned colored guy who talks like a white guy is more palatable to American tastes than, say, an Al Sharpton. The truth. Plain and simple.

Of course it’s redundant to ask why the Dems can’t get their head out of the elephant’s ass and address this tripe for what it is.

If Reid were not racist, then please tell me why he would even think such thoughts, much less verbalizing in private.

I am far right wing, grew up in a very racist family and overcame that – in time (racism, not my conservative views). Many of my closest friends are black, the gentleman who gave my wife away at our wedding is Hindu, the maid of honor his Philipino wife and the majority of those I tutor sustainability to are asian.

Please, you do your cause and the black community a disservice by whitewashing. Once we begin measuring racism by degree, then both sides lose.

Harry Reid turned me into a newt

I got better

some don’t, ya know

(wink)

I think you are writing the headline wrong. You should state clearly PAST Senate Majority Leader. People will associate the present Majority Leader with your headline and move on!

Once again. Reid simply points at the national electorate and the reality that America, at base, is racist. So. Even mentioning that is racist as well? Is the Pug disconnect contageous? Looks like.

The smart play would be for DEM’s to toss him now before his electoral defeat and elect a Majority Leader from a solidly Blue State. Naturally the DEM’s will do the dumb thing and stay in Reid’s corner to the bitter end.

Honestly, what exactly would be “smart” about doing that? If the Dems toss Reid now as majority leader, it just goes that much further towards guaranteeing his electoral loss in November, since he’ll have nothing to brag about to Nevada bacon-wise. Dems gain nothing by hiring a new majority leader now, instead of after November. Making Durbin majority leader in December is the right way to go. Hold on to Harry’s seat as best you can until then, gang.

“a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’”

“Even mentioning that is racist as well?”

Yes, I’d say so

Of course, his biggest, fastest, most ardent, most exaggerated and repeated defender is…that stalwart of right vs wrong, that he-man of principle, that dogged Leftie, President Barrack Obama Himself. Surprise surprise surprise.

I want to inject a new bitch against Obama here. His use of “is, is” when he speaks is every ounce as fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoying and incorrect as Bush’s “new-cue-ler”.

Oh yeah, and this story about Reid saying what he said? Its purpose is to consume our attention. It’s another Hog Call. Why do we always answer?

(Snideness not aimed at FDL. Most times, just think of Carly as a bird flapping overhead.)