Harry Reid's hopeless isolation

So as you surely know by now, Harry Reid said, during the 2008 campaign, that Obama was electable due to his lack of a "Negro dialect" and light skin tone. This is of course course literally true – Obama is just white enough (culturally and genetically) that he's clearly the anti-Willy Horton – but the word "Negro" has thrown a lot of people into a tizzy. But honestly, I don't think the crime is so much that Reid said something that's mildly offensive – it's that he said something so hopelessly out of date. Calling someone a "Negro" isn't an insult, it's just old-fashioned, and in a way that someone as powerful as Harry Reid shouldn't be. It indicates a sort of out-of-touchness with the world that shouldn't be acceptable in politicians, but is inevitable with that many years of "service." When's the last time the man engaged with the world outside of DC and North Dakota Nevada politics?