How the context behind Reid’s gaffe was missed

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010 | 2 a.m.

If ever there were a better example of a Kinsleyian gaffe, it was Harry Reid’s exposed in “Game Change.”

And if ever there were a better example of the infirmities of the 24/7, get-it-out, get-it-now world of journalism (and I plead guilty to being part of it), it was the explosion of coverage after The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder published the inflammatory excerpt on his blog late Friday.

The now-infamous quote from the Senate majority leader that Sen. Barack Obama could be elected president because he is “a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” has been embarrassingly pounced on by opportunistic Republicans and embarrassingly defended by petrified Democrats.

Understanding, as I do, the partisan attack reflex, especially in these days of whine and poses, this is less surprising than depressing. The utter lack of context is ludicrous, especially the inevitable comparisons to ex-Majority Leader Trent Lott’s comments that caused him to be deposed.

But so, too, is the utter failure to understand Harry Reid — no, I don’t mean his sycophants describing him as the first black majority leader (they almost went that far). I refer to who he really is, what he does (so, so often) and what it really means.

The remark itself is a perfect example of what Michael Kinsley, the incisive political commentator, famously declared 18 years ago: “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”

This is the rub in all of this, folks, as numerous analysts, white and black have pointed out. Reid, in his usual clumsy way, was doing what he usually does: Saying what others are thinking, but would never say out loud.

As the Columbia Journalism Review’s Greg Marx wrote Tuesday, “Reid’s use of the word ‘Negro’ was tin-eared and offensive (not to mention, in the context of even a ‘deep background’ interview, incredibly dumb). But unlike Lott, the idea he was expressing amounted to analysis, not a prescriptive political vision. What’s more, his analysis was accurate ... Reid’s thoughts about the nature of Obama’s appeal are backed up by research about how voters perceive black candidates; they are also, as Jeff Zeleny writes (http://tinyurl.com/ycb4f9z) for the Times, consistent with things that Obama himself has said.”

Exactly.

I still find it humorous that Reid has claimed, as Lott did in 2002, a “poor choice of words,” but has refused to say what a better choice would have been. Let me pose a question: What if Reid had actually said, “Barack Obama is not Al Sharpton, so he can win.” Or if he had said, “Obama will not be threatening to white voters as some African-Americans are. He will be much less divisive than Hillary is.”

Folks, that’s what Reid really meant. And how many serious people out there would disagree?

The Lott analogy, at least on substance, is laughable. Lott was lamenting that a segregationist presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, had not been elected in 1948 because “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” On the politics, of course, Reid and Democrats deserve all they get from the salivating GOP horde, flawed horde though it may be considering the party’s record on many issues. Live by race-baiting; die by race-baiting.

And the reflexive defense by so many African-Americans of Reid, while expected, is somewhat hollow, especially those who had the audacity to point out that the word “Negro” is encased in the United Negro College Fund. As if that makes Reid’s use of the word “Negro” acceptable.

But beyond the predictable choreography here is the plain fact that Reid simply cannot help himself. Another Nevada senator, Chic Hecht, was once labeled a human gaffe machine in a Wall Street Journal headline that many say could apply to Reid, too. But Harry Reid is no Chic Hecht (may he rest in peace). Hecht was a haberdasher in over his head on Capitol Hill; Reid is an inside player par excellence who doesn’t perform well on the outside.

He has the least understanding of the media of any pol who has ascended so far, and he is frequently too off-the-cuff, which is probably why his staff purchased an office sphygmomanometer. What he thrives on is the art of the deal — whether he is acting as a vote-counter or meddling in elections, local or, as in this case, national.

I say this not to praise Reid, nor to bury him. I say it because it is the truth. The majority leader speaks only in Reid dialect and he can’t change it now, which is why he will always be in electoral danger and why he will always disgorge gaffes, Kinsleyian and otherwise.

Jon Ralston’s column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.