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Yes, Harry Reid, That Joke Was Racist

by Abby Johnston

Everybody's got that family member that hits the eggnog way too hard during the holidays and starts saying really awful, racist things. You fervently hope they don't mean it, and that maybe they're just drunk and senile. Well, the U.S. Senate has one of those proverbial family members, too, and he has struck again. On Thursday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a racist Asian joke to — wait for it — the Asian Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas.

We're cutting you off, Harry! No more eggnog!

The Democratic senator was back in his home state addressing the crowd, when he thought that he would simultaneously dispel and reinforce stereotypes about the Asian population.

"The Asian population is so productive. I don’t think you’re smarter than anybody else, but you’ve convinced a lot of us you are," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The crowd of about 100 laughed at the joke, but I can only imagine it is the kind of nervous laughter that I do when I bring a new boyfriend to family functions and my very conservative uncle starts talking about gay people. I wonder if anyone in the crowd gritted their teeth and clenched their wine glass until it shattered, or if that's just me.

Still, it gets worse. He followed up that gem with another racist one-liner, saying that he has trouble "keeping his Wongs straight."

T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Reid was supposed to be endorsing Democrat Lucy Flores for Nevada's lieutenant governor. The Chamber ended up throwing its official support behind the opposition, Republican Mark Hutchinson. So, there's that.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon was quick to jump on something that you area probably already thinking, describing him as the "gray-haired senator," ending the article by noting that he is 74-years old, and — well, actually — just flat-out calling him geriatric.

Reid has since issued a statement apologizing for the remarks.

My comments were in extremely poor taste and I apologize. Sometimes I say the wrong thing.

Well, yes, Harry. You actually say the wrong thing pretty frequently. The time you called tourists smelly, comes to mind. Or the time that you said that Ted Kennedy's death would help Democrats pass healthcare reform. Or noting that President Obama was both light skinned and spoke without a "Negro dialect," that is, "unless he wanted to have one."