Specifically, he said then candidate Obama stood a good chance of winning because he was, [...]]]> If you have not heard, Harry Reid is catching heat from the right about a comment he made during the last Presidential election race. I know, I just heard the collective scrunching of noses and loss of interest. FOCUS! Stay with me!

Specifically, he said then candidate Obama stood a good chance of winning because he was, “light skinned” and spoke with, “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” I say, cut him some slack. Why? Mostly, because I am on the right but not a Republican. I can forgive him for letting his colors show, so to speak, but don’t feel the need to attack him because he is a Democrat.

The flack he is catching from the right is over the hypocrisy of how the left, and Democrats in particular, react to such comments from their own, verses someone from the right and Republicans in particular. Why, they say were George Allen, Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, James Watt, and others treated so harshly for words that were more insensitive than racist? Why does Biden get a pass for characterizing convenience store clerk jobs as requiring an Indian accent et. al.?

The public’s concern is lost in all the rhetoric. This is representative of a larger issue in American politics which I suggest is at the heart of why we are tired of American politics. I have in my head the caricature of our elected officials playing a football game. Imagine the flapping neckties and soft bodied tackle attempts and whinny insults from the bench, the breathless attempts at power-walk like blitzes and the squeak squeak squeak of plastic surgery parts stretching under the exertions. Imagine the hair; imagine errant comb overs, a muddy postiche near the Gatorade cooler, that crackling sound when hairspray teased poof scrapes Astroturf, and the hair stylist/team managers clamoring on the field when the whistle blows to attempt to save a $400 hair do. I think they are all ridiculous when they shake their fists shakily at the camera, two fingers taped together, and claim to fight for us. Where are the real athletes? But the issue that screams at me has more to do with why would people who appear to be so inept at the game on TV, choose to play the game, and how do they so passionately choose to play for one team or another? And why are we so angry at both teams?

Is the answer in Harry’s words? Let’s see, is Obama light skinned? I guess you could say so, or not. Does he have any particular dialect? I don’t think so. Could he fake one? If Hillary can get away with what she contrived as a southern draw, I am certain he can pull something out of his hat. How about the words of Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond at Strom’s 100th birthday party? “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.” Is that racist? Not on the surface. The answer depends on whether you believe he was referring to Strom’s strong support of state’s rights, or his support for racial segregation. Care to guess which the Republicans chose? We can’t know a man’s heart, but the way we react to such statements shows our own.

The difference is seen in who each group tolerates in their midst. In general, conservatives agree on more conservative principles than we disagree on. I like to think this is because the truths we hold are self evident, that the conclusions we reach suffer reason. We tolerate people who do not hold one or more of these beliefs, but once you do not hold several as true, it is more likely that you will side with the liberals anyway. For instance, a conservative might agree with limited government, fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense, and personal liberty, but believe that a woman should be allowed to abort a pregnancy for reasons entirely her own. Liberals and Conservatives alike would label such a person a Conservative. Liberals on the other hand, tolerate almost anyone who agrees to vote for their cause. Liberals tend to be ardent liberals with only one or two issues they are passionate about, and willing to feign passion for all the others. Each group saw themselves in candidate Obama and are puzzled when theirs was not his first priority once elected. I have a good friend, for instance who hates the Iraq War and wants to legalize marijuana, (both would be better served by Conservative policies, but another day for that) but he is rather conservative in every other way, but would never openly support a Republican program even if they were offering legislation he would otherwise support. There is considerable hypocrisy on the left and so they are rather tolerant of it as long as it does not hinder their pet agenda. Case in point; they want the government to “stay out of my womb” but insist that regulating every other health issue for everyone is OK. They believe that the government should not be able to limit the use of “medical marijuana” but should definitely criminalize incandescent light bulbs or trans-fats.

How does this relate to the racism label being thrown around differently for conservatives than for liberals? It has to do with political correctness and critical mass. When someone says or does something, like cheat on his wife, a conservative is willing to give that person time to redeem themselves. Shame on you, take a break, talk to me about it again in a year or so and convince me that you have come to your senses. The liberal does not care unless the infidel is playing for the other team. If a politician lies on his taxes, conservatives expect him to step down, if that politician is a conservative, liberals agree, if that person is also a Republican, the Democrats agree and some where along the way critical mass is reached and he is forced out. If a liberal Democrat cheats on his taxes, conservatives expect him to step down, the liberal points to this as a smear tactic and claims that he has a good heart and should be pardoned, so long as the tax cheat supports the agenda, and the Democrat will defend him because on April 15th, a Democrat cheat beats a Republican of any shade every time. Alas, no critical mass. If you think I am talking about Tim Geithner, do a Google search for “democrat tax evasion –democrats.com, and poke around a little in the 1.4 million hits, many not Geithner. Don’t think for a minute that this is somehow an endorsement for Republican tax virtue, replace the word Democrat with Republican and peruse the 324,000 hits you get. Again, I imagine the shaky little fists and Barney Frank’s lispy claims of fighting for me.

Harry Reid, a strict PC public figure “used an unfortunate phrasing” and just as importantly, President Obama immediately forgives him and hopes the whole thing will just go away, so it is misspeak, not a view into his character. George Allen makes up what he thinks is an Indian sounding name, and it is an obvious Freudian slip, indicates the deep seated white supremacy hatred he has for people not like him. Worse than that, he did it in public with a complete disdain for political correctness. What an amateur, using a fake word without focus grouping it first. He is obviously not first string material.

Give Harry a break, he has been elected to the level of his incompetence and cannot possibly be expected to get it right on light bulbs and supporting Obama for President and knowing what phrase to use when labeling African American dialects. We are, after all, just human.

The real call for his removal should come from his Nevada constituents and the non-Black community.

Oops, I heard the screeching tires and the resounding crash. Did I change gears too fast? What can I possibly be talking about? Well, in Harry Reid’s private comments he revealed that he didn’t necessarily respect Obama for his charisma or his intellect or for his commitment to principle, or ability to perform the duties, but for his electability, his packaging. He viewed Obama as a well presented candidate who would bring the Black vote along, without offending too many white people as would one with darker skin and a Black dialect. Obama voted the right way, and was minority enough, but not too minority so as to scare the White people. In one careless and revealing phrase, Harry Reid insulted Blacks by predicting they would vote for race, insulted whites by predicting that they wanted to, and insulted most moderate voters as being gullible enough to be so manipulated. President Obama was looked at as a ringer brought in from out of town to play in the Church league, and the opposition would never see it coming. Harry Reid doesn’t think Whites are better than Blacks, he is just a political hack. No shock, one has to be to become majority leader. I agree with the liberals we should give him a break on the racism front.

The truth is much more sinister than a racial bias. Harry Reid, thinks that his political allies are better than EVERYONE else. His People automatically know that everyone supporting Strom Thurmond is racist, and they KNOW that they make better decisions about YOUR personal life than you could ever make if left to your own devices. This is why we are tired of American politics. Not because Harry recognized a racial political fact, or was careless enough to let the world see that Democrats can actually see race. Not because Trent Lott should have carefully prepared a PC preface to every compliment he made to an old man at his birthday party. We have tired of hearing how hard the last game was or how hard they are training now. Both parties are campaigning for first string, which we select like we choose homecoming queen. We end up with professional campaigners but the football games look like an exhibition game with Congress and the White House officials on one side and paid, private sector lobbyist professional ball teams on the other. Guess which side has skin in the game. From the bleachers it looks ridiculous, even entertaining, you can see small groups of drunks humming the Harlem Globe Trotters theme, except that we are getting our butts handed to us by the pro’s. Any given day, the first string blames the second string and visa versa, and the opposing team takes home the spoils. The home team is getting our butts kicked and the post game talk is full of complaints about towel fights and locker room welts and who refuses to shower.

It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with different standards for first and second string. It has everything to do with professionalism. We are running out of money for tickets and we are tired of loosing every season.

“There are 100 senators here [...]]]> Well they did it, in the middle of the night, while we slept. I say “they”, I don’t know how to say more correctly, “WE THE PEOPLE”. Our Congress agreed to end debate on 300 pages of replacing amendments which few have read, and no one seems able to explain.

“There are 100 senators here and I don’t know that there’s a senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that isn’t important to them,” Reid said. “If they don’t have something in it important to them then it doesn’t speak well of them. That’s what legislation’s all about,” Reid said of the compromises. “It’s the art of compromise.” – Harry Reid.

His excuse, like I often get from my 7 year old, is a permutation of the he-started-it defense. It is similar to my 7 year old defending making a mess by pointing out that my 5 year old made one the day before. Reid would have us swallow that grabbing tax dollars for votes is OK because they are all doing it, if not, . . . well . . . sucks to be them, that is their loss. He says health legislation is about the payments we taxpayers will have to pay to hire Senators to vote to end debate, not about representing Americans by voting like they would vote for themselves. Ben Nelson, the Senator from Nebraska successfully arranged to exempt his state from the Medicare expansions . . . forever. If it is such a good idea, why would Nebraska want to be exempt? If this is such a good bill, why do we need to bribe Senators to vote for it?

Do not try to convince me that paying a state an estimated $100 million in concessions before their Congressman will vote for something is anything other than a bribe. Shame on Nebraska, and I hope that the Governor sticks to his principles and agrees to drop this provision.

They passed cloture on debate of the health care amendments some 36 hours after it was shown to the Senate. They voted to stop debate on a healthcare scheme that does not apply to them, will not start helping anyone until 2014 even though the massive taxes start immediately, and contains numerous payoffs for those who represent us. They voted to stop debating a bill hardly any have seen, because they were paid to do so, without having to live with it themselves, hours after it became public, in the middle of the night.

We could afford to buy insurance for everyone who is uninsured ten times over and still have some left over to subsidize the trial lawyers with the $1.2 Trillion this health care would cost. My question is this, if the price of a vote is $100 million or so, and we have 100 Senators, can we simply pay them the $10 billion to vote to go home?

How many bosses can say that sending their employees home, with pay, can save the bosses a thousand times the employee’s salary?