Trent Lott and Harry Reid. There Is a Difference.

While attending the 100th birthday celebration for Dixie-crat Senator Strom Thurmond in 2002 then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stated in essence that the United States would be "better off" had Strom Thurmond won the 1948 presidential election. Mr. Lott was pilloried not only by the Democrats but even by his own GOP, which ultimately resulted in Mr. Lott stepping down as Majority Leader.

Now, a new controversy has arisen concerning the current Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Harry Reid who is the senior Senator from Nevada and a Democrat. In a book titled "Game Change", Mr. Reid claimed that the reason that then-candidate Barack Obama had a good chance of becoming the first African-American U.S. President was because he was "light-skinned" and did not speak with a "Negro dialect" unless he chose to do so.

Republicans are now crying "racist!" while Democrats circle the wagons around the "inartfully articulating" Senator Reid. The Republicans are furious that when Sen. Lott made his "inartful" toast to Strom in 2002, they stood against his comments and were a major force in his resignation from the Senate Majority Leader position. By contrast, the Democrats, instead of declaring their abhorrence at Senator Reid's "racist" statements are in fact standing behind him.

I'm a member of the Heritage foundation and a reluctant supporter of the Republican party. But I think that in this case that the Republicans are trying to create a controversy that doesn't exist.

When Trent Lott made his famous statement, he essentially said that he supported Strom Thurmond's 1948 "pro-segregation" Dixiecrat platform. Equal but separate. How could any modern politician think that he could publicly articulate such an opinion and then not be held to account for it? Not to mention that segregation has been proven to be bad policy.

Senator Reid, by contrast, was stating a painful fact about American politics. White Americans in general are more comfortable with black politicians that speak Harvard English and whose appearance more closely correlates with their own. Senator Reid has been a strong supporter of civil rights legislation, especially as seen by the NAACP and the Black Congressional Caucus.

A far more appropriate subject for comparison would be Rush Limbaugh, who lost his NFL commentator position when he stated his opinion that the mainstream press was motivated to overstate Donovan McNabb's accomplishments in order to support the position that black quarterbacks can perform as well as whites, who at that time dominated the quarterback position. He later clarified that he felt that Donovan McNabb had the potential to be a great NFL quarterback but that at that time he did not deserve the praise that was being given him by the press.

In any case, I believe that the Republicans are making a case that is not supported by the facts or public opinion. Trying to equate Lott's comments that essentially said that a pro-segregationist president would have produced a better America with Harry Reid's analysis that Barack Obama, as a light skinned African-American who spoke very precise English are not even remotely the same class of comments.

In this situation, I think that the GOP needs to figure out that "this dog won't hunt".