Since I can't imagine Hope and Change scoring a lot of points next time around, I wonder what Platonic ideals he'll run on then?

I did not vote for Obama. (I did not exactly vote "for" McCain either.) But there is no way to deny that a very large, perhaps decisive, number of white voters voted for him less because they thought he would be a good president than because they were enamored with the thought of themselves voting for a black candidate. I am hardly the first person to point this out.

I have been wondering for a few months exactly what Rattle Gator wrote about. Because of Obama - whose term is 1/4 over with really no prospect of improvement during the remaining three years - there simply will be no white "goodwill" vote for the next black candidate, including for Obama in 2012. Certainly another black Democrat won't get it and really I don't much think a Republican one will, either.

I'm not so sure, though, whether that will actually be a bad thing. We need to elect presidents based on the merits of their policies, their accomplishments and what Dr. king said - the "content of their character" - not the color of their skin. And if that is how future black candidates are evaluated by voters, so much the better, I think.

But the flip side is this: because of Obama, how many white voters will decline to vote for another black candidate no matter what his accomplishments, policies and character? That's the great unknown.

His color will be correctly seen as red. There will be no after-effect other than a black candidate will receive no benefit from his race except the usual one by blacks.

I've always held that true equality will be achieved when mediocre people of all races, creeds and colors will reach high levels of power regardless of their abilities.

So in about 60 years, we've moved from needing an exceptional athlete such as Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in baseball, to needing only an inexperienced politician with no executive ability leading the nation. That's progress.

Now THAT'S pith. Promoted to "On the Right."

BO's incompetence should have no effect on future candidates who are American blacks. After all, BO is not an American black, but an Arab passing for black.

Barak Obama is the apex of affirmative action. He is the affirmative action president. He had little or no qualification for the job and was elevated over other candidates simply because of the color of his skin.

What is happening here is nothing else than the administration of David Dinkins - on a national scale.

Everyone in NYC was taken by the feeling of "hope" and "change" when David Dinkins became the Hizzoner at Gracie Mansion in early 1990. However, one thing is to get there and another is to prove you deserve to remain there. IMHO what proved his total incompetence was his reaction to the Crown Heights Riots of 1991. (Google it.) And then, there was "Don't Dis Your Sis", a flimsy campaign against an epidemic of rapes in the African-American community in the city.

Soon enough, the best Dinkins could do was not good enough - in fact, it was a joke. A former Federal prosecutor by the name of Rudy Giuliani found his chance, and defeated Dinkins, decisively in 1993. The chattering classes back then were lamenting that the election of Giuliani was a "referendum on race", when the people of New York proved otherwise, and never looked back.

We can safely assert that Obama will suffer the same fate as Dinkins.