6 months ago
WASHINGTON, DC (USATODAY) -- Once again we confront the aspect of President Obama's legacy that is the easiest to discern and the hardest to discuss.
He is, in fact, the nation's first African-American president.
Harry Reid's newly reported comments, from the 2008 campaign, that Obama could win because he was "light-skinned" and did not have a "Negro dialect" is only the latest flashpoint.
The man who would become Obama's vice president, Joe Biden, apologized for 2007 comments calling the then-Illinois senator "articulate and bright and clean."
Race provided the subtext for the campaign controversy over Obama minister Jeremiah Wright, and became the subject of a celebrated Obama speech that will studied by any historian who writes about him.
As president, Obama and his aides would just as soon not discuss race. But it can't help but pop up, as in the famous "beer summit" with the black Harvard professor and the white Cambridge police officer.
And some White House allies, such as former president Jimmy Carter, suspect that race is behind some of the criticisms directed at Obama.
Conservatives, meanwhile, see a "double standard" applied to Democrats and Republicans when it comes to racially-tinged remarks. Some Republicans say Reid should step down, just as Trent Lott did after racially charged comments he made in 2002.
No to be outdone, indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich now says he's "blacker than Barack Obama." Go figure.
Rest assured that Reid's remarks won't be the last racial flap of the Obama presidency -- and, really, how could it not?
Race has been a major subtext of most United States history, from slavery and the Civil War, to the civil rights movement and affirmative action -- and, now, the Barack Obama presidency.
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