George Rebane

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is being done dirty for his spot on assessment of candidate Barack Hussein Obama.  Obama’s candidacy was being framed in the aura of his ability to become the first ‘black’ president.  Actually, Obama is a mulatto, but in our society that makes him more black than white.  And it was in this context that old Harry made his correct and supportive remarks about the good looking, smooth talking, done nothing Senator from Illinois.

Harry said that to his benefit Obama was a “light-skinned Negro”, and that he spoke “with no Negro dialect, when he wanted to”.  Both attributes would strengthen Obama’s candidacy.  And Harry said that in an environment where such honest assessments were expected of politicos evaluating Obama’s candidacy.

Right here and now, let me go on record that I also shared those same views of Obama with my compatriots during the months leading to November 2008.  I wanted Obama to win because he was a mulatto, and I wanted him to lose because he had the belief system of a socialist.  And to Obama’s credit, he did not hide those beliefs.  We now know that he told a lot of lies, but when it came to what he had in mind for the country, the man spoke with a straight tongue.  (It’s all those people who weren’t paying attention then, who are now saying ‘Oh sh#%!’.)

But getting back to the roasting of Harry; Republican chairman Mike Steele and others are saying that Reid should be held to the same standard that sent Senator Trent Lott to the locker room.  And Democrats trying to defend Reid look like Ralph Kramden explaining his latest folly to Alice (younger readers may skip this sentence).  My take is that neither Lott nor Reid should be pilloried for their respective remarks about Strom Thurmond and Obama.

If in the corridors of governance we cannot frame a remark that is accurate and not intended to hurt in a clear, complete, and concise manner, then what have we become?  Obama is a good looking, light-skinned Negro, should we deny that?  The important point in the electioneering was that he appeared to be an electable candidate with obvious Negro ancestry.  His victory would be an historic first.  A long time ago we got over acknowledging membership in the Negroid race to be a racial slur.

And Obama does speak like the mainstream educated American that he is.  He doesn’t have the black speech artifacts that many/most African-Americans have whether they are speaking ghetto dialect or ‘California english’.  Yes, I know that the politically correct consider it racist to say that blacks and whites can reliably identify most black speakers on radio. 

Harry, and everyone else listening to Obama, correctly believed his sonorous American baritone to be in the man’s favor with the large cross-section of voters that he would face in November.  And, of course, Obama could put on a believable black accent when the audience required it, another plus for the candidate.

So what the hell is all the fuss about?!  To many of us, Harry Reid is a common sleazebag politician and a lying sumbich.  I can see a dozen legitimate ways to go after his political career, but his calling a diamond a diamond is not one of them.