2 Unfairs don't make a fair - From an LA Times Opinion Piece.
There is so much to enjoy about the Democrats' Harry Reid problem, and yet I find the whole spectacle horribly depressing.
First, let's recap the bright side. The addlepated and vindictive Senate majority leader deserves the grief he's getting for saying -- according to the new book, "Game Change" -- that Barack Obama would make a promising Democratic presidential contender because he's "light-skinned" and can speak "Negro dialect" only when he wants to.
Just last month, Reid insinuated that fellow senators standing in the way of "Obamacare" were carrying on the tradition of the racists who stood in the way of civil rights in the 1960s. You've got to love it when the gods punish race-card players so poetically.
But one thing the moment doesn't call for is more "gotcha."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said over the weekend that Reid should step down from his leadership position because of his comments. For this we needed the first African American head of the Republican Party?
Steele is obviously right that there's a double standard when it comes to such racial gaffes. A Republican says something stupidly offensive or offensively stupid about race and he must be destroyed, even if he apologizes like Henry in the snows of Canossa. But when a Democrat blunders the same way, the liberal establishment goes into overdrive explaining why it's no big deal.
But by demanding Reid's resignation, Steele is making an idiotic, nasty and entirely cynical game bipartisan. Yes, there's a double standard, bu] the point is that the standard used against conservatives is unfair, not that that unfair standard should be used against Democrats as well. (My Emphasis)
There is so much to enjoy about the Democrats' Harry Reid problem, and yet I find the whole spectacle horribly depressing.
First, let's recap the bright side. The addlepated and vindictive Senate majority leader deserves the grief he's getting for saying -- according to the new book, "Game Change" -- that Barack Obama would make a promising Democratic presidential contender because he's "light-skinned" and can speak "Negro dialect" only when he wants to.
Just last month, Reid insinuated that fellow senators standing in the way of "Obamacare" were carrying on the tradition of the racists who stood in the way of civil rights in the 1960s. You've got to love it when the gods punish race-card players so poetically.
But one thing the moment doesn't call for is more "gotcha."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said over the weekend that Reid should step down from his leadership position because of his comments. For this we needed the first African American head of the Republican Party?
Steele is obviously right that there's a double standard when it comes to such racial gaffes. A Republican says something stupidly offensive or offensively stupid about race and he must be destroyed, even if he apologizes like Henry in the snows of Canossa. But when a Democrat blunders the same way, the liberal establishment goes into overdrive explaining why it's no big deal.
But by demanding Reid's resignation, Steele is making an idiotic, nasty and entirely cynical game bipartisan. Yes, there's a double standard, bu] the point is that the standard used against conservatives is unfair, not that that unfair standard should be used against Democrats as well. (My Emphasis)
