Reid tries to move past racial comments about Obama
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, under fire from Republicans for racial comments about President Obama, today said that he was hoping to put the incident behind him and get on with the nation’s business including healthcare overhaul.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his comments were reported over the weekend, the Democratic senator told reporters at a stop in his home state of Nevada that he had apologized for the comments.
“I’m not going to dwell any more on this,’ Reid said in remarks televised on cable networks.
In their book “Game Change,” Time magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York magazine’s John Heilemann quote Reid meeting with Obama and being impressed by the junior senator. Reid “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 later put it privately.”
The comments have ignited a political firestorm with Republicans calling on Reid to step down, an unlikely possibility as Democrats wrestle with congressional issues like healthcare in a midterm election year.
“I’m going to move forward and get healthcare done” in the forthcoming weeks, Reid said today.
Reid noted that he has apologized for the comments. “I have apologized to everyone within the sound of my voice,” he said.
“My heart has been warmed” Reid said, by support from prominent blacks, nationally and from Nevada, where he faces a tough re-election campaign.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has said that the president “didn’t take offense” at the comments.
-- Michael Muskal
