Harry Reid championed the first black president

This has been Harry Reid’s cause for a lifetime. Harry Reid knows that it is wrong when 17.3 percent of the nation is jobless, when foreclosures mount to the skies, while Wall Street and bankers pay themselves giant bonuses that are front-page news yet again.

Harry Reid has been a champion for working people, for civil rights, for economic fairness, for fair labor standards and wages and for the rights of men and women of all races.

Yes, his words were wrong. Apology needed. Apology given. Apology accepted. The only people who don’t accept Reid’s apology are Republicans who champion economic unfairness, who have opposed civil rights and who try to equate support for a segregationist president, from a Republican, with support for the first black president, from a Democrat.

Harry Reid was one of the architects of the great change elections in 2006 and 2008. He led Senate Democrats from controlling 45 Senate seats before 2006 to controlling 60 seats by 2009. He advocated the election of the first black president when some did not believe it was possible, and others tried to use race against Barack Obama.

Reid was right that Obama could be elected, and right that Democrats should fight for his election. Reid has been right for a career and for a generation that men and women, blacks and whites and every American of every background deserve equal justice, a good job, a fair wage and a straight deal. That is why Harry Reid is right and his Republican crocodile-tear enemies are so wrong.