The Party Of Racism? Which One?

Yesterday's Hill made a point about how the Republican Party is still a bastion of throwback racism and this morning's Washington Post feature on the race for the chair of the Republican National Committee paints a pretty sad picture of how bigoted the Party of Lincoln has become now that it is utterly dominated by the old slaveholding states (+ the Mormons).

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been a champion of racial equality, right? Well... kind of... at least after the sixties. The spectacle of the Senate Democrats blocking-- perhaps physically and apparently illegally-- newly appointed Illinois Senator Roland Burris, an African American Democrat, from taking his seat in the Senate is somewhat dismaying. What makes it more dismaying is that Harry Reid, who looks more and more like a pathetic chump by the day-- and really should step down as Majority Leader-- called Governor Blagojevich and urged several white candidates on him and expressly told him to not appoint any of the leading African-American candidates.

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.

Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones-- the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama-- because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero confirmed that Reid (D-Nev.) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)-- the new chief of the Senate Democratic political operation-- each called Blagojevich’s campaign office separately Dec. 3. Sources believe that at least portions of the phone conversations are on tape.

Very nice. And you can count on Senate Republicans making it even worse and making Reid look like even more of a fool and a scoundrel than he already is.


UPDATE: QUESTION FOR SENATOR REID

What makes Tammy Duckworth, who has never won an election to anything, "electable" and Jesse Jackson, Jr., for example, not electable? Nevada voters have never elected an African-American to any statewide offices but Illinois voters certainly have. In November Jackson won re-election with 89% of the vote, the highest percentage of any Illinois incumbent from either party. IL-02 is about 60% African-American so apparently he has some appeal to non-African-American voters as well. As for Duckworth... what is she aside from a creature of Rahm Emanuel who-- like Emanuel himself-- was used to derail a progressive candidate? (They both won bitter primaries with bundles of cash.) Unlike Emanuel, though, Duckworth lost her general election race, despite outspending her Republican opponent $4,556,495 to $3,302,702, virtually all of that coming through the good graces of Emanuel, who sacrificed at least 3 viable Democrats around the country so he could funnel DCCC money to Duckworth's useless campaign. But Harry Reid has decided she is viable? Because she's white? A pro-war Emanuel puppet? What the hell is this all about? Has Reid lost his marbles? (On Meet The Press today he said he's not a racist and that Blagojevich is a liar.)