Oops (With Update)

From Political Wire:

One more item, this time about Sarah Palin, from the soon-to-be-released book, Game Change:

The New York Times notes that "in the days leading up to an interview with ABC News' Charlie Gibson, aides were worried with Ms. Palin's grasp of facts. She couldn't explain why North and South Korea were separate nations and she did not know what the Federal Reserve did. She also said she believed Saddam Hussein attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001."

Yes, I know that BushCo was pushing the non-existent Saddam/9-11 connection to the hilt during the run-up to the Iraq Debacle, but I'm amused that Sarah Palin believed as late as 2008 that Saddam actually attacked us on 9-11.

By the way, I don't normally buy political books, but I might have to get Game Change, because that's the book which brought Harry Reid's "Obama is light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect" comment into the light.

And speaking of this whole Harry Reid dust-up, this is interesting:

George Will waded in to the controversy over what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called his “improper” comments about then-Senator Obama’s race. Reid apologized for the comments which appear in “Game Change”, a new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, hitting book stores this week.

Here’s what Heilemann and Halperin report in the book about what Reid said during the 2008 presidential campaign:

“[Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,’ as he said privately.”

On the roundtable, George Will defended Reid against charges of racism and provoked this spirited exchange with fellow conservative Liz Cheney:

WILL: I don't think there's a scintilla of racism in what Harry Reid said. At long last, Harry Reid has said something that no one can disagree with, and he gets in trouble for it.

CHENEY: George, give me a break. I mean, talking about the color of the president's skin...

WILL: Did he get it wrong?

CHENEY: ... and the candidate's...

WILL: Did he say anything false?

CHENEY: ... it's -- these are clearly racist comments, George.

WILL: Oh, my, no.

The whole thing is intriguing to me. Had Glenn Beck privately said that the country "was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," he probably would have been attacked for making a racist remark. The corollary to such a statement is that a dark-skinned African-American with a Negro dialect would be unelectable to the highest office at this time, and that is undoubtedly a true statement.

Reid's comments certainly pertained to race, but where they racist? Does the issue of whether a remark is racist depend on who is making the remark? Just asking. I'm not sure what that answers to those questions are.

UPDATE: This is from Joan Walsh at Salon:

[Michael] Steele and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl are shrieking "double standard," comparing Reid's comments to the stunning 2002 musings of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who had to resign after he said the country would have been better off if it had elected Dixiecrat segregationist Strom Thurmond president in 1948. Oh sure: One guy is talking, perhaps inelegantly, about why he's wholeheartedly supporting our first black president; the other is wishing the country had elected a racist. That's exactly the same thing!

And Josh Marshall notes: "Talking about racism does not make you racist; advocating racism does."