THE BEST FRIENDSHIPS never die.

FLOW CHART: Mapping out the politics of offensive statements.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Is Harry Reid a Racist? It Depends On What The Meaning of “Racist” Is.

If by “racist,” you mean somebody who feels antagonism toward black people, then Harry Reid isn’t a racist. Harry Reid thinks we are racists.

If by “racist” you mean somebody who would use other people’s feelings about race in a purely instrumental way to amass political power, then Harry Reid is a racist.

Well, that’s a generous assessment.

UPDATE: Comments from Eugene Volokh, and the Crack Emcee. Plus, Ed Driscoll.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from Steven Barnes. “It was ‘racist’ in the strictest sense that it was discussing race. But it seems to me he was just commenting on some common-sense things. . . . A number of times I came across comments that these comments were acceptable in private black-on-black conversations, but not for white people. . . . Are there subjects that only whites can talk about publicly? I’ve never been aware of black people refraining from commenting on anything they want. Where, again, is the official list of those things blacks can talk about, but not whites? Men but not women? Gays but not straights?” I think the list changes as politics demand.

MICHAEL TOTTEN: From Baghdad to Beirut: What Iraq’s capital should aspire to—and what it should fear.

OKAY, HE CERTAINLY WASN’T HIRED FOR HIS LOOKS, but this makes it sound like he wasn’t hired for his brains, either: Harry Reid was source for story about Reid’s racial comments. Can even Harry be this dumb? Yes, he can!

IN THE MAIL: From Lisa Johnson Mandell, Career Comeback: Repackage Yourself to Get the Job You Want.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: N.Y. Daily News: Come clean, Gary: Rep. Ackerman needs to provide all details of his $100,000 score.

UPDATE: About a gazillion readers wonder why Rep. Ackerman’s party affiliation isn’t mentioned. Yeah, go figure.

CANADA’S PARLIAMENT APPEARS TO HAVE no more “dignity” than our own Congress.

PEOPLE ARE CALLING FOR TIM GEITHNER TO RESIGN, BUT DON’T WORRY: I’ve got his successor picked out.

ROGER KIMBALL: Obama’s Broken C-SPAN Promise: A “Read My Lips” Moment? “That hissing noise you hear is the air going out of the Obama bubble. It will be interesting for some future historian to mark the date when his administration became posthumous, a ‘dead man walking.’ I suspect that the name ‘CSPAN’ will enter into the calculation.”

OOPS: Golden State Off the Rails As Mass Transit Ridership Plummets. “What do people in the world’s tenth largest economy do in a severe recession? They stop taking the bus, fill up their tanks, and start driving. It’s happening all over California. The San Jose Mercury News has an entertaining story on BART defectors, solid Bay Area liberals who have given up on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.”

MICKEY KAUS: Honey, Will You Be My Game-Changer? “In the Edwards case, it strains belief that a) Hunter was the first, or the sole John Edwards affair–only Chris Hitchens believes that–and that b) the candidate’s extra marital activities weren’t well known among staff. Yet in the Game Change excerpt, Edwards’ aides all seem to believe he’d ‘long ago made the decision not to fall into that trap.’ It was only Hunter’s relentless determination that got him to stray! Right. … ”

Plus this: “What lies, if any, did Edwards’ aides tell in their successful attempt to get the MSM to suppress the Hunter story in the days before the New Hampshire primary–and if there were lies, as I suspect there were, who told them?. Were all the lies really told by John and Elizabeth themselves? Remember, Edwards is through in politics. Aides Jonathan Prince and Mudcat Saunders are not. What did they do and when did they do it? … Or did the MSM just roll over and abdicate at the mere mention of St. Elizabeth’s illness (or John Edwards’ … progressivism).”

DEMOCRAT: “I’m blacker than Barack Obama.” No, it wasn’t Harry Reid who said this. . . .

MARK BLUMENTHAL: Massachusetts Polls: Divergent Results But One Clear Finding.

NO PREJUDICE AGAINST the robosexuals, please. Or the cavemen. It’s a tough world out there, whether you go high-tech, or low . . . .

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Harry Reid’s “Negro” Remarks.

Guns in D.C.

A Bill Whittle investigation in DC.

Bill Clinton on Obama getting him coffee.

Obama vs. Biden.

Stephen Green’s Week in Blogs, with extra Hawtness.

How’s that signing-statement promise working out?

BYRON YORK: Even in Massachusetts, weak support for Dem health care bill.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Dingells and GM illustrate limits of congressional conflict-of-interest rules .

WELCOME TO POST-RACIAL AMERICA! Congressional Black Caucus: We’re Cool With Reid Calling Obama a Light-Skinned Negro.

UH OH: America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels. They told me that if I voted for John McCain the interests of ordinary Americans would suffer while financial fatcats raked it in. And they were right!

RICH GALEN on double standards. “If Romney had used the phrases ‘light-skinned’ and ‘Negro dialect’ his religion and his religion’s history in this matter would have been noted high up in every story.”

JIM TREACHER’S NEW SITE is now up and running!

ROGER L. SIMON: ClimateGate continues: “Follow the money, not the temperature.”

FROM MICKEY KAUS, A QUESTION FOR TOM BROKAW:

Did you know that the Dartmouth analysis–contrasting the amount spent by U.C.L.A. in the last six months of life with the smaller amount spent by Mayo in Rochester–doesn’t count the money spent on patients who live? And here I thought having patients survive was kind of the whole point.

No, Mickey. Power for the right sort is the whole point.

STATE OF THE STATES: Broke and going broker.