Steele: Reid should relinquish leadership post
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., should resign from his leadership post following the revelation Reid made reference to President Barack Obama using the term "Negro".
Steele made the statement on a Sunday morning talk show. Obama has accepted Reid’s apology for using the term, considered outdated and offensive by many.
Reid’s staff members have said support for Reid from black civil rights leaders such as Rev. Al Sharpton; NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, and Wade Henderson, chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights differentiates Reid’s situation from that of former Republican Senate leader Trent Lott.
Steele, who is black, compared Reid to Lott, R-Miss., who was forced from his leadership post in 2002 after remarking he would have supported segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., for President in 1948.
The Wall Street Journal reported Steele’s remarks.
“There’s a big double standard here,” Steele said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He noted that after Lott made his remarks, Obama, then a state senator from Illinois, urged Republicans to oust the Mississippi senator from his leadership post.
Steele is under fire for a racial comment of his own. His new book contains the phrase "honest Injun."
Here is The Hill’s account of Steele’s statements.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s report.
