Heh.

Sen. Harry Reid, in an effort to increase the popularity of the imperiled health care reform bill, on Monday added a provision requiring insurance companies to pay 100 percent of the cost of treatments intended to lighten the skin of African-Americans.

The news came a day after the revelation that in 2008 Reid had said Sen. Barack Obama's presidential chances were good thanks to his relatively pale pigment and lack of "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"It's not fair that the path to the Oval Office is blocked for my darker-hued friends," Reid said Monday. "Skin-lightening therapy will open the corridors of power to a new generation of African-American leaders. And thanks to my amendment, this treatment will be free at last."