Put this in the stupid statement column

Obama wants someone fired in the Justice Department's voting rights division because this person said something stupid. Let's see what it is...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said Friday the head of the Justice Department's voting rights division should be fired for saying voter ID laws hurt the elderly but aren't a problem for minorities because they often die before old age.

John Tanner's remarks came during an Oct. 5 panel discussion on minority voters before the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles. Tanner addressed state laws that require photo identification for voting, saying that elderly voters disproportionately don't have the proper IDs.

"That's a shame, you know, creating problems for elderly persons just is not good under any circumstance," Tanner said, according to video posted on YouTube. "Of course, that also ties into the racial aspect because our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first.

"There are inequities in health care. There are a variety of inequities in this country, and so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities. Just the math is such as that," Tanner said.

Yeah not a very smart statement to make. I imagine that he was going by statistics but I wonder what the real world says. He might be surprised to find out that there are quite a few elderly minority people out there. Perhaps if he leaves his government offices every now and then he'd know that.