Adding insult to stupidity

The attempt to paint Harry Reid as a racist moves onto the Denver Post's Al Knight:

Reid's judgment of Thomas, the only black member of the high court, is nonsense. His reference to "poorly written" decisions merely demonstrates he hasn't read any of them. Furthermore, Reid's comment, uninformed as it surely is, is little different than the racist swill that used to be the staple of Southern Democrats, when there still were some Southern Democrats.

Translation:

Reid should not disagree with me because Clarence Thomas is black. Because Reid read some of Thomas's opinions and finds them poorly written, he could not have read them. Furthermore, the Southern Democrats used to be racist. Democrats = racists.

See how that works?

There's more:

Reid's remarks are doubly insulting because of his willingness to praise Scalia, who has been on the same side of many cases with Thomas. To think of one as brilliant and the other as an "embarrassment" bespeaks nothing more than a profound ignorance regarding both.

Translation:

Reid praises Scalia, which means his is an ignorant racist because Thomas and Scalia agree on issues.

Of course, reading the whole interview shows that Reid's praise of Scalia was strictly one of writing a persuasive argument, and not praise for his position on the issues. There is nothing ignorant about that.

To use myself as an example, Mr. Knight and I have written two paragraphs above that put forth the same argument. You can argue that one of them is well written and the other, by comparison, not so well written, and that would not make you ignorant.

Racist, maybe, according to some on the right, but certainly not ignorant.

*UPDATE* Oliver Willis finds another one.

*UPDATE II* Novak's at it, too, offering up the same argument that Mr. Knight tries to put forth. This must be one of the GOP talking points for weeks to come.

*UPDATE III* Josh Marshall posts:

Because I was busy spending time on planet earth I hadn't noticed that there are more than a few conservatives now claiming that Sen. Harry Reid must be a racist because he said on Meet The Press that he would consider voting for Justice Scalia for Chief Justice but not Justice Thomas since the latter had been an "embarrassment" as a member of the court.

To these folks, I suppose, both men are equally well-respected "conservatives," and thus favoring one over the other can only be a function of race prejudice.

This is the kind of things Democrats are always slow to react to because they don't believe these attacks will take. I'm glad to see someone of Marshall's popularity report on it, but I hope his post isn't as dismissive as I think it is. Like I said, keep an ear open for this idea as the weeks go by.

*FINAL UPDATE* Looks like Media Matters is on the case as of tonight.