A friend emails me to comment on the post Jumping on Reid, and his thoughts afford me the opportunity to say a little more about the matter. Mike writes:
I think the really horrible point in Trent Lott's statement a few years ago was the reference to the "good old days" before the civil rights movement. Whether said in jest or not, a public statement like this from a senator from Mississippi was legitimate reason for Lott to step down.
Maybe Reid's comments aren't sufficient for his dismissal, but certainly if we wanted to see a senator resign for reasons of poor character and incompetence, Harry Reid would be one of the first on the list.
I wrote back to him:
Mike,
I would agree with you that it would have been reprehensible had Lott said what he said with civil rights in mind, but I have no reason to think that he did. Lot's of people are nostalgic for the "good old days" and mean nothing hurtful by it. The plight of minorities isn't even on their horizon when they use the phrase. I don't have any reason to think Lott was doing anything but trying to make an old guy feel good on his 100th birthday.
I think that our political discourse needs to change from a "gotcha" mentality where all we care about are the politically correct rules of the game to a point where we give people the benefit of the doubt until we have good reason to believe that they're unfit for office. In other words, I think we need a lot more of the Golden Rule in politics.
I believe with you that Reid is unfit to be a senator, much less majority leader, but not because of his comments about Obama. If we don't want people to criticize us unfairly for things we say which may have implications we didn't intend then we shouldn't criticize them when they make the same kinds of statements.
Parenthetically, I just read chapter 5 of Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue, and I have to say that if she's only half right about the way her political opponents tried to destroy her after the 2008 election then there really are some very wicked and contemptible political activists in our society. Conservatives should strive to be nothing like them.
RLC
