My must read of the day is "Harry Reid to Dan Snyder: 'Writing is on the wall'," in Politico:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—a vocal opponent of the Washington Redskins’ name—took to the floor Wednesday and continued to slam the team’s owner in light of the Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to cancel the team’s trademarks.
"The Redskins no longer have trademarks. They are gone," the Nevada Democrat said. "Daniel Snyder may be the last person in the world to realize this, but it’s just a matter of time until he is forced to do the right thing and change the name." […]
The PTO issued a long-awaited decision regarding the team’s six trademarks, which said the trademark registrations would be canceled.
"The Redskins no longer have trademarks. They are gone," Reid said. "And so as I understand the law, if the presiding officer wants to use the name Redskins to sell some shirts, you can do that."
This isn’t the first time the Redskins have faced a legal challenge when it comes to trademarking their name; they successfully appealed a similar 1999 ruling.
I don’t particularly have a strong opinion on this name, mostly because I’m not that interested in football. I think the name is offensive and it has been for years, but what I find annoying is that few people actually cared before last year.
Perhaps the most notable, sudden critic is Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who has been serving as a senator since 1987. According to a Nexis search, Reid never commented on the 1999 ruling, and it wasn’t until 2013 that he began opposing the name.
On Dec. 11, 2000, as congressional leaders and the White House approached an agreement to cut spending from 12 appropriations bills, Reid was quoted as saying, "It’s not what we wanted, but it’s better than what we had last week … It's real close, but the budget is like the Redskins football team. We get right to the goal line, but we can't get over it."
Apparently Reid liked the Redskins’ analogy because his spokesman paraphrased him when discussing immigration reform in December of 2000.
The National Journal wrote, "A spokesman for Senate Minority Whip Reid, who has been active on immigration matters, today said progress is being made, including on the 245(i) provisions. ‘Like Sen. Reid says, we're like the Redskins. We're very close, but we're not there yet,’ according to the spokesman."
Reid chose to use a similar comparison during a 2001 press conference on counter terrorism:
QUESTION: And my other question is, would it—why were these things ignored, all of these proposals, yours included?
REID: What I've said from the very beginning, and I think most of us are saying, is that, you know, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. The Washington Redskins when they lost 30-3, I thought I could have done a much better job than either of the two quarterbacks that were in there that Sunday.
Apparently, Reid did not care about the offensive name in the early 2000s, but now (as we all know) it is very important to him.
It reminds me of the outrage surrounding Donald Sterling. Sterling’s comments were horrible, appalling, and should have angered anyone with a nickel between their ears, but what I couldn’t make sense of was the sudden outrage when apparently Sterling had done horribly racist things in the past—things that people who followed the NBA were well aware of it. They were just apathetic until TMZ made it front page news.
The term "redskin" did not become offensive for the first time last year. I’m all for some good outrage, but manufactured outrage when it’s politically and socially convenient is futile—and frankly, bullshit. That’s all this Redskins battle is. It’s trendy to oppose it right now, so everyone’s jumping on board.