http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122401622&ft=1&f=1014Can anyone say: Trent Lott?
Michael Steele can.
GOP: Response To Reid Remark Is Double Standard
by The Associated Press
January 10, 2010
Republicans on Sunday accused Democrats of a double standard by accepting Sen. Harry Reid's apology for racial remarks about Barack Obama instead of demanding Reid's ouster as majority leader.
In a private conversation reported in a new book, Reid described Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign as a "light-skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
Reid (D-NV) apologized to Obama on Saturday, and the president issued a statement accepting the apology and saying the matter was closed.
GOP Chairman Michael Steele, in appearances on two Sunday news programs, compared Reid's predicament with the circumstances that led Senate Republican leader Trent Lott to step down from that post in 2002. Lott had spoken favorably of the 1948 segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond, and in spite of apologies for those remarks at Thurmond's 100th birthday, Lott was forced out as leader.
"There is this standard where the Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own. But if it comes from anyone else, it's racism," said Steele, who is black. "It's either racist or it's not. And it's inappropriate, absolutely."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Reid should step down, calling his comments "embarrassing and racially insensitive."
"It's difficult to see this situation as anything other than a clear double standard on the part of Senate Democrats and others," Cornyn said.
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