If you haven’t gathered by now… my blog posts usually have a high correlation to quotes from things I read or people I hear… and this post is no different. If you didn’t already know, Democratic Senator George Biden said recently about fellow Senator Barak Obama,

‘I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy’ (emphasis added)

One can only imagine Biden said this because Obama impressed this upon him–and, one could also conclude that such an opinion was impressed because of the uniqueness (in Biden’s mind) of the quality in question… namely Obama’s cleanliness.

Now, Biden is getting SOME slack for this comment, but I think it would be helpful to remember the comparative slack given to another Senator who said the following words.

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either,”

Trent Lott, former Senate majority leader, was forced to resign his post because of those words. Not only do they not even mention blacks in any way, but they were said in the context of wishing a very old and feeble man a happy birthday… and yet Lott was crucified for their utterance–by Democrats, by the media, by blacks across the country.

I wonder though, and perhaps you could answer the questions yourself:

• Which statement is more overtly racist?
• Has the media held Biden to the same standards as they held Lott, or have they quickly forgotten the story?
• Who behaved better, Senate Democrats in the Lott case or Senate Republicans in the Biden case? Who was more ruthless in their attacks?

These questions bring to mind another interesting quote. During the Lott fiasco, many Democrats thought that Lott should be “censured” for such a comment. The eerie silence of Democrats in this case isn’t surprising. They quickly forgive racism if its one of their own, but exalt their own moral superiority when it is convenient to do so (one needs go no farther than their tolerance of Robert Byrd). They protect and forgive for overt acts of racism but call for blood when race isn’t even uttered. The media is no better.

But all things being equal, I doubt Biden actually meant anything racist by his comments… and Lott probably didn’t either. Were it not for a troubling double standard applied to Republicans, this post might have been much different. Is “clean” really a racially charged word? Is calling someone “ghetto” or “white trash” any better? Do we not all hear those vernacular regularly without even a second thought to their racial overtones? This media episode points out the sensitivity, insecurity, and fealty to the gospel of political correctness everyone in Washington seems to suffer from–and it kinda makes mes sick!