How Do You Take Your Coffee?

With Harry Reid's old racial statements coming back to haunt him, I'm actually more interested in something Bill Clinton said. According to Game Change, a book that looks at the 2008 election:

The day after Iowa, he phoned [Ted] Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

We don't know the exact phrasing, but why would Kennedy find this offensive? Sure, it's hyperbole, but it's exactly the kind of thing people say behind the scenes. Unless Clinton kept referring to Obama as a coffee boy (or kaffir boy), this is the dismissive way you'd talk about any neophyte politician, regardless of race. Okay, I wasn't there, but it sounds like Kennedy overreacted.