For the non-political, disengaged, uninformed and vaguely liberal white person (i.e. a giant chunk of the population), a great deal of Obama’s appeal is simply because he’s black. When I meet these types it never ceases to amaze me how you can’t exaggerate the way they romanticize black-ness. It’s a free pass for anything and everything.

It reminds me of that scene in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, is recalling his childhood and his liberal Jewish parents. The mother is complaining that the black cleaning woman is stealing from them. And the father poo-poohs it by saying “She’s a colored woman, from Harlem! She has no money! She’s got a right to steal from us! After all, who is she gonna steal from if not us?”

Indeed. Well who is Obama going to steal from if not from us?