Katie Couric's Notebook: Harry Reid

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There's a song in the musical Avenue Q called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." The characters Kate Monster and Princeton sing, "look around and you will find, no one's really color blind."

Well, a new book reveals that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a racially insensitive gaffe of his own during the 2008 Presidential campaign. He referred to Barack Obama as a viable candidate because he's light-skinned, with, "no Negro dialect."

Aside from sounding like a line from Show Boat, "negro" is a wince-worthy term you might hear from a politically incorrect uncle not something you'd expect from a senator with a good track record on civil rights.

One Republican consultant said that if Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had said it, he'd be shipped off to Guantanamo.

It's wrong no matter what side of the aisle it comes from and proof that the election of the first African American president wasn't the end of the same old song.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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