Is Sen. Harry Reid Racist?

I hate seeing people throw around charges of racism, but you have to wonder what the motivation was behind the new Senate Minority Leader's blast at Justice Clarence Thomas this weekend on Meet the Press. Here's how James Taranto of Best of the Web reports on the exchange with Tim Russert:

For no apparent reason, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrats' new leader, is denouncing Justice Clarence Thomas. Here's an exchange from Tim Russert's interview with him on "Meet the Press" yesterday:

Russert: Let me turn to judicial nominations. Again, Harry Reid on National Public Radio, Nov. 19: "If they"--the Bush White House--"for example, gave us Clarence Thomas as chief justice, I personally feel that would be wrong. If they give us Antonin Scalia, that's a little different question. I may not agree with some of his opinions, but I agree with the brilliance of his mind."

Could you support Antonin Scalia to be chief justice of the Supreme Court?

Reid: If he can overcome the ethics problems that have arisen since he was selected as a justice of the Supreme Court. And those ethics problems--you've talked about them; every people talk--every reporter's talked about them in town--where he took trips that were probably not in keeping with the code of judicial ethics. So we have to get over this. I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy. And I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reason for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute. So--

Russert: Why couldn't you accept Clarence Thomas?

Reid: I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don't--I just don't think that he's done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.

Now, we haven't read Thomas's entire oeuvre, but we've read quite a few of his opinions, and we wouldn't describe any of them as "poorly written"--much less so poorly written as to make him "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court." (One of our favorite opinions of recent years is Thomas's dissent in Grutter v. Bollinger, the 2003 case upholding racial preferences in college admissions provided they're vague enough.)

It's a shame Russert didn't press Reid to name some Thomas opinions he considers to be poorly written. In the absence of such examples, one can't help but suspect that the new Senate Democratic leader is simply stereotyping Thomas as unintelligent because he is black.

Can you imagine the firestorm that would result if ANY Republican were to call ANY black Democrat an "embarrassment"?