As you’ve probably heard, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said some decidedly un-PC things about candidate Barack Obama back in ‘08:

Harry Reid, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader and the national government’s highest-ranking Mormon, has admitted now remarking apparently with some amazement on the nation’s highest-ranking black Democrat as being notably “light-skinned” and having “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

Reid has already apologized, and Obama has forgiven him. Republicans are calling on Reid to step down, arguing, correctly, that a Republican in a similar situation would not be so easily forgiven.

So what are we to make of this–that Reid is an idiot? It sure seems that way. What baffles me as much as Reid’s stupidity is his use of the word ‘negro’. Seriously, who uses that word in 2010 (or 1985, for that matter)? It might not be racist, but it’s certainly antiquated. I don’t recall ever hearing it in casual conversation.

It’ll be interesting to see the fallout from this. Can Harry Reid weather the storm? My guess is given that Reid was in struggling in the polls to begin with, Democrats will use this opportunity to ditch Reid and field a candidate in Nevada with a better chance of winning in November. Look for intense pressure on the Senate majority leader to retire at the end of his term, if not step down from his leadership position.