Why Obama Let Reid Slide on Racial Comments

Hi. My name is Harry Reid and some of my best friends are Negros. I mean black. I mean African-American. After the book Game Change came out and it was revealed that I thought Barack Obama could be elected because he was light-skinned and had no Negro dialect unless he wanted to there was quite a commotion. It was not meant as a racist comment, but merely an honest appraisal of the political situation in America. We know that a dark-skinned black man, like Jesse Jackson for instance, could never be elected President. Even if we overlooked his racial grandstanding, his spitting in the food of white members of the country club where he worked in the kitchen, or his blackmail of corporate executives in exchange for racial harmony, the barriers for Jackson were too great because of his dark skin and heavy Negro dialect. Obama on the other hand, unlike Jackson, had a modest paper trail, a so-far ineffectual career and powerful friends in the right places that could put their money where their mouth was and help the party as well as Obama and me. I was impressed by his ability to turn on that Negro dialect when a line in his speech called for it. I knew his dual race background and his African ancestry would attract minority and special interest groups. I also knew his affiliation with ACORN and the union movement would help him in some of those primary states where Hilary would have a big advantage like Indiana. After all ACORN registered more than 800,000 voters in the Indiana Primary contest. And of course the presence of SEIU members at so many of his rallies, as well as the presence of armed members of the New Black Panther Party at polling places shows a willingness to do the things that must be done to be elected. As the book Game Change reveals it was me who called Barack to my office and recruited him precisely because I felt he could win for the reasons so far stated. So in a nutshell that is the reason he accepted my apology. I recruited him. He is President because of me. He owes me.