I've already commented on the controversy surrounding the president's speech to schoolchildren. Now that we know the content of the speech we can see how stupid the assaults on it are. But the assaults were also noxious, and nobody really had to have read a text of it to realize that.
As my readers understand, I am given to see race as an ever more minor factor in the conflicts of our society. But as I thought about these outcroppings of hysteria about a dignified and highly literate Barack Obama talking to young kids it all seemed so phobic. Yes, and phobic about black. Disgusting.
The most elegant comment on this ugly attack on the president I read was by Tunku Varadarajan, certainly among the most literate of American columnists, in Forbes.com where he writes regularly.