Race bows to charisma and competence

I have been reading blogs of friends, along with the MSM (except Fox), all of whom are raving in one way or another over Barack and Michelle in Europe. I agree with all of them. But, 0ne thing that is overlooked is that these two are so charismatic and competent that the public does not see race -- sure the public knows they are African American, but the perception is no worse or better than the public realizing that JFK was Irish, or LBJ a Texan.

This is the subject of a great opinon piece in today's WashPo by Eugene Robinson (one of my favorite OpEd dudes). Here is a sample:

In the cacophonous commentary about the president -- he's a breath of fresh air, he's too liberal, he's too moderate, he's being far too generous to the banks, he's some kind of closet socialist, he's restoring the nation to greatness, he's leading us to perdition -- it's striking how seldom race is mentioned as an issue or even an attribute. That's only natural, since race could hardly be more irrelevant to the multitude of urgent problems Obama wrestles with every day. Watching him in action, as he shoves out the chief executive of General Motors or exchanges small talk with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, we witness a daily demonstration of the irrelevance of race. And that, potentially, is nothing short of transformative.