Republican leaders on Sunday called on Harry Reid to step down as Senate majority leader, after the Nevada Democrat apologized for calling Barack Obama as a "light-skinned" African-American who lacked a "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO that Reid should immediately step down as majority leader.
Cornyn said Reid's comments "were embarrassing to the Senate" and warrant his removal from leadership. He noted that Reid, then minority whip, had backed the ouster of Republican Leader Trent Lott after he made racially charged comments in 2002.
Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, also pointed to a "double standard" in how Democrats have treated Reid as compared with Lott.
"If he should resign, then Harry Reid should," Kyl said on "Fox News Sunday." "If they apologize and you know what is in their heart, my feeling is they shouldn't, but in this case he should."
"There is this standard where Democrats feel they can say these things and apologize as long as it comes from one of their own," said Republican National Chairman Michael Steele on the same program. "And if it comes from somebody else, it’s racism."
Sure, he apologized. However, had Rob Bishop (just throwing a name out there) said something similar, no amount of apologizing would be enough.
So, We see hypocrisy from both sides of the isle: Republicans for suddenly caring about racism, and Democrats for pretending it's OK to say something possibly racist, because if you have a track record of helping minorities......
-Bob
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