By Jeffrey Page

Now’s the time for certain Senate Democrats exhibiting bizarre behavior to be relieved of leadership positions and to give the party back to fair-minded people.

Last month it was Charles Schumer, our genius senator from New York, calling a woman flight attendant who displeased him “a bitch,” and getting away with it. There was some critical talk for a day or so, and then all manner of Schumer’s sexist streak – what would he have called a male attendant? – vanished, like it never happened.

And now, a new book quotes Schumer’s Senate colleague, Majority Leader Harry Reid, commenting in 2008 on Barak Obama’s appearance and voice in light of his presidential aspirations. Obama is a “light-skinned” black man, Reid said. Why do I get a sense there was more to this than sheer observation, and that Reid was suggesting that such a lighter skinned African-American would be a better fit for the Democratic ticket than a dark-skinned African-American?

Reid also noted that Obama has “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” (Good god, did the Democratic majority leader of the United States Senate really just refer to a “Negro dialect?” In this, the 21st century?) Reid was saying that Obama’s “Negro dialect” allowed him to sound one way when speaking before the NAACP, another while addressing a reunion of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and a third while appearing before the (non-existent) National Council of Debate Enunciation. I walk away from this thinking that Reid was really saying that Obama can sound pretty white when he thinks it’s necessary.

Obama has acknowledged such varying tones, but hold the thought for a minute because Reid’s concerns seem a little one-sided. If Reid ever took note of the fact that Hillary Clinton’s artificial southern drawl was evident when she campaigned in the south but is nonexistent now when she meets with Hamid Karzai to discuss the legitimacy of the Afghan election, I missed the story.

And if Reid has wondered about that blackboard-squealing Texas drawl of President George W. Bush – who grew up in New England, attended Yale, moved to Texas and only then developed the accent – I apologize but I never saw that story either.

Democrats, having given Schumer a pass by their silence last month, now are falling all over themselves defending Reid. Dianne Feinstein of California, noting that Reid apologized to President Obama and that Obama accepted his regrets, said enough is enough. Let’s move on.

Well, wait a second. You don’t have to be Obama himself to be mortified by Reid’s drivel about “Negro” skin color and speech patterns, and you didn’t have to be the flight attendant to be outraged by Schumer’s sexual slur aboard that airplane. Decent Americans will reject such drivel.

I hate the political tit-for-tat that amounts to: The other party did it and didn’t have to pay a price so why should we? The Republicans are using this line and it’s tiresome. Several have interrupted their field day against Reid with remembrances of the pressure exerted on their own majority leader, Trent Lott, to step down eight years ago when he spoke glowingly of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential bid on a segregation-forever platform.

Lott resigned as majority leader, but Reid is showing no signs of giving up his leadership post, leading Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas to sniff about a double standard. Cornyn was quite wrong.

Granted, Reid spoke the words of an idiot, but what he said was a far cry from Lott’s worshipful recalling the days of the height of Jim Crow – 54 years after the fact.

Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

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