What's he apologizing for now?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's quote about then-candidate Barack Obama has caused a lot more stir than it's worth, but I'm not making excuses for Reid, who has apologized to the president and to all African-Americans. It must be hard to apologize for stating the obvious truth. I'm not a fan of Harry Reid, who, I think, has been the cause of much of the continuing divisive partisanship that has kept Congress from accomplishing anything (he has had plenty of accomplices), but I think a mountain has been made of a molehill of a remark.

Reid has apologized, but what has he apologized for? He admits saying the remark quoted in a new book about the 2008 campaign, referring to Obama as "light-skinned" and someone who did not engage in "Negro dialect" unless he needed to. His description of Obama is entirely accurate. The president is the mixed-race son of an African man and an American woman. His skin is a sort of medium on the color scale. He is widely regarded as one of the best speech-making politicians of his day. His speech patterns reflect a careful articulation without any obvious regional or cultural inflections. Those are facts. Reid has apologized for speaking the truth.

What he should be apologizing for is the fact that current political rules do not allow the pointing out of obvious racial differences, unless, of course, the racial or ethnic differences are written into law in a manner to benefit specific groups. You can pinpoint the desire of racial minorities to elect one of their own under the Voting Rights Act's special provisions, for example, but you can't point out that Islamist terrorists tend to be young males of Arabic descent.

As for the president, his candidacy benefited from the very attributes that Reid pointed out. His skin color is little different from the color of many Americans of European descent, and he doesn't talk like a rap artist. (Reid's use of the antiquated term "Negro" might seem awkward or insensitive but is not incorrect.) Americans might be uncomfortable with admitting that we might be ready for an African-American president but they're not ready for Al Sharpton or H. Rap Brown as president.

Republicans are screaming because they say Sen. Trent Lott was crucified when he suggested at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party that America would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president in 1948. Lott was forced to give up his majority leader position. Lott's remark was more stupid than insensitive, the result of trying too hard to compliment the old codger on his birthday. Being stupid is a more serious impediment in performing the duties of majority leader than whatever crime Reid committed. A more relevant comparison to Reid's remark is now-Vice President Joe Biden's 2007 remark in which he said almost the same thing Reid did, that Obama is articulate, "clean" and nice looking. Biden might have one-upped Reid on the political incorrectness scale.

If Reid loses his election this year, it should be because of serious issues in Nevada and Washington, not on account of an offhand remark that is deemed politically incorrect. Americans should be more willing to accept the truth, even if it does cringe our racial sensitivities.