Thank you, Steven and Hilzoy! I "came over" with you to this website, Steven, and I have to thank you for letting me know I have not been alone in my perspectives over the past few years. You, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Randi Rhodes have kept me feeling sane. Now I am hopeful for the future, and your keeping the fires of fairness and progressive ideals alive have played no small part in a bright new day for the United States and the world.

Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication!

Marty McAuliffe

"No parent ever has to wonder how to have that conversation any more: whether to lie to his child or to take her dreams away before she's had a chance to try to realize them."

Except Arabic parents. Or Asian parents. Or parents of a Muslim, an atheist, a Buddhist, or a gay child. Last night was unquestionably a turning point but would be a mistake, however tempting, to think that with Obama's election we have finally realized Martin Luther King's dream of an America in which skin color is irrelevant, much less done away with other types of prejudice. It's a great step forward, certainly, but let's not get complacent.

"I still can't really believe that Obama actually won. But I'm trying."

I feel exactly the same way. After the last two elections I just couldn't get optimistic no matter how good the polls looked; even now I can hardly believe it.

Any takers on if they'll see a gay or atheist president this century?

#1 is interesting. No question that she couldn't be president because she will be a woman. I would have thought that unless it was a very special case --- Hillary, or perhaps Liddy Dole 10 years ago --- gender would have been a bigger problem than race. But what do I tell my Jewish daughter? Does SHE have a chance to become President?

Just to be clear: I don't mean that we have transcended race. I think that's a long struggle, and I don't expect it to be over during my lifetime.

I really did mean: the quite specific, and much more limited, problem of having that conversation has gone away. It's only one problem, but still.

-- I mean, when I was thinking about that, it just felt so horrible that any parent should have to wonder what to say. I thought: in my country, the answer should just be: yes, you can be President, if you work very hard, and are very talented, and if you're very very lucky. Period. You tell your kid that no one can simply expect to be President, that it's a very hard thing to accomplish, and takes not just work but lots of things breaking right; but no one should have to tell their kid: actually, it's not worth even trying.

of course that challenge has always existed for parents of daughters -- and still does.

I am thrilled to see the election of a black man -- never thought I would live to see this day -- I can remember when racial discrimination was both legal and routine. Like many others there were tears rolling down my cheeks when it actually happened and I wish the secret service could put him in a bullet proof case until January 20 -- and perhaps for the next 4 years.

But girls are still waiting. Hillary Clinton's successes make the dream at least credible. I hope to live to see the election of the first female president.

I wasn't on the streets last night; I was in a ballroom in Trenton, New Jersey. But the elation was there. Later that night, as I was home watching TV of Chicago, and New York, and DC, and other locations it struck me that this was similar to the jubilation we saw during the Velvet Revolution, the Orange Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Now, I don't want to imply that the victory of Obama is morally equivalent to the victory over totalitarianism in Europe. But I can't get over the sense that the joy of people at regaining ownership of their government was the same. Remarkable.

To me the most important part of this election is that we are back to being governed by people who think that government can be a positive force in people's lives instead of people who think that government is the problem. What that means in the short run is that the approach to problem solving will go from an approach of how to make government less responsive to an approach of how to make government more responsive. I suppose that the first place that that change in approach will be felt will be in the appointments to fill cabinet positions and the top levels of the Plum Book. Instead of Michael Browns we will get more James Lee Witts. And that will be an improvement.

"of course that challenge has always existed for parents of daughters -- and still does."

I'm not so sure that's as true as it was before this election. Neither Clinton nor Palin won, but they were both credible candidates who easily could have won. That in itself is a great step forward; I don't think the next female presidential candidate will face the same resistance that Clinton did. Those "18 million cracks" do count for something.

Thank you Hilzoy. I tried reading #4 to my pals here, and got too choked up. We were hooting and hollering out here in the desert too, with every state count. What a night. The magnitude of it all just doesn't come that easy yet.

After eight years of assault on our Constitution, we have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law. I cannot express what this means to me.

Start with the obvious: the Constitution won. Or, The People defeated the "assault on our Constitution".

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Celebrate today, but remember to continue your vigilance when the new president and the new Congress are all sworn in next January.

And about being a woman: rightly or wrongly, I've always felt that that one would fall much more quickly. One part of that is that I think racism would be more of an obstacle (this does not mean i think it's more of a problem than sexism, just a problem that would be more likely have this one specific effect: keeping people out of the White House.)

But another is the numbers. Women are slightly more than 50% of the population, if memory serves. Blacks are a little under 13%. Moreover, they are systematically disadvantaged in ways that I would expect to keep many blacks from becoming plausible Presidential candidates in the first place (e.g., lack of educational opportunities, incarceration rates, etc.)

Very few people have the peculiar constellation of talents, discipline, and sheer blind luck to become President; the odds that someone from a smallish group, and one that is, as noted, systematically disadvantaged in ways that would keep its members from becoming plausible Presidential candidates in the first place, seemed to me pretty small. That's a problem women do not face, and I had always thought that it meant that we'd be likely to see a woman become President long before we'd see an African-American become President.

"I don't think the next female presidential candidate will face the same resistance that Clinton did."

But if the argument is that now children can see an African-American president as evidence that they can be anything they want, we still have not seen a woman president.

So if you believed that before this election you would have been lying to a black child, you're also still lying to our daughters. Seeing is believing.

What about an Italian-American? The first time a woman was on the ticket there was more concern with her ethnicity then with her gender.

(I'll admit up front, I'm going to run this in-joke into the ground today)

But...how does Obama WINNING the election...hurt Obama's chances for winning the election?

If only Mary were here...SHE would know.

FWIW, during the acceptance speech last night, I was giving my newborn baby her midnight feeding (3 1/2 months is still technically newborn? Or does that now make her an infant? Heh. labels). And I was holding her as Obama started talking about that 100+ year old woman from Atlanta casting her vote, and all she had seen, all the accomplishments she had borne witness to in her life. And I was holding my baby as Prez-elect O. asked about what our nation will be like for the children, his AND ours, if they are able to live to see the next century - what history will we want them to witness, what injustices will we want them to see corrected. And as pleased as I was with the outcome of the election, I grasped, on the emotional as well as the intellectual level, just why people become so moved by this man and his words, and what it means to have hope in your hearts. I was hopeful, don't get me wrong, but on a rational thinga-have-GOT-to-get-better level. In the head, not the heart, that changed last night. And I held my baby last night, bottle in one hand, her little head and neck my other arm, and I cried a little, hoped a little, and I think prayed a little. For an agnostic/cynic/DFH like me, that is HUGE.

Oh...is this day NOT all about me? Sorry. Continue your jubilation. :)

I'm not so sure that's as true as it was before this election. Neither Clinton nor Palin won, but they were both credible candidates who easily could have won.

Absolutely. It's easy for this historic moment to be eclipsed by Obama's election.

I would look for Republicans, from a purely strategic standpoint, to start going after women as a voting block very aggressively. This will mean more party support for GOP candidates who are women at every level.

Hillary certainly made a HUGE impact and will continue to do so if she remains a force to be reckoned with in the senate and even future presidential races for the Dems. Condoleeza Rice and Madeline Albright and Nancy Pelosi have all made Americans more comfortable with women in positions of political power.

There is still a long way to go, but progress was definitely made during this campaign.

A gay president, I fear, is much further away for now. I am actually quite surprised by the victory of Prop 8. Not sure how are why that happened, but the evolution of our society on that front may have hit a snag.

Asian president? Depends on how that is defined. I could certainly see Bobby Jindal as a credible and viable candidate -- especially if the moderates get control of the GOP.

Interesting question.

After eight years of assault on our Constitution, we have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law. I cannot express what this means to me.

What? You mean no more fourth branch?

I think what Obama shows is not that "anyone can be president," but more accurately that race or ethnicity (and probably gender) are not bars to being president.

What a strange post, part 1 at least. I've never doubted that there would be a black president in my lifetime, assuming I lived well into retirement (say 2030). And while I'm not black, I HAVE had the conversation with my daughter about whether she could be president, and the answer is the same. I don't need to see a validation from the electorate, especially if it turned out to be in the form of a Sarah Palin.

Barack Obama isn't going to be a black president, he's going to be a great president.

Doesn't John Yoo teach con law? I mean, the content matters.

After eight years of assault on our Constitution, we have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law. I cannot express what this means to me.

That's a huge issue for me as well. Any guesses on an Obama AG? He's got a wealth of candidates.

I can't believe this has finally happened either. It's overwhelming and leaves me kind of numb. Kind of like being a kid when Christmas finally arrives.

It's gonna be weird having a president and vice-president who I can trust.

Marler wrote: Or, The People defeated the "assault on our Constitution".

No, the people defeated the Party that assaulted the Constitution. You know, Marler, the one you've been advocating for, honestly and otherwise, in these threads for years. Where was your "eternal vigilance" then?

Jackass.

After eight years of assault on our Constitution, we have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law.

Funny that. For me the significance of Obama isn't "first black president." It's "smartest damn guy to hold the office in a loooong time." It's "a president who views the rest of the country as fellow citizens." It's "the guy who's stepping up to the plate." It's "the guy who maybe, just maybe, can start fixing things."

I fervently hope that future generations will read about the eight years of the Obama administration without even thinking "first black president." Yeah, that's significant. But I think the real significance of the Obama presidency will go soooo far beyond that, that when the histories are written they will say in essence, "And by the way, he was also the first black president."

Congratulations to the first black president. Congratulations to the first man I've been proud -- tearfully proud -- to vote for in my life. Congratulations to the man who has inspired voters unlike any other in generations. Congratulations to all my fellow citizens who had sense enough to see the strength and possibility embodied in Barack Obama.

What a thrill to see the best of America offered to the world. Let's keep doing that...

majun@10.54a - your comments about lack of governmental competence was right on. More James Lee Witts and fewer Liberty University graduates!

Gregory: You know, Marler, the one you've been advocating for, honestly and otherwise, in these threads for years.

I think that my strongest criticisms of the Republicans were over the Schiavo affair and the McCain-Feingold law (which was in fact opposed by most Republicans in Congress but signed by Bush).

I advocated closing down the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I shall be interested to see where Obama sends the prisoners, if it's still there when he takes office.

But with you and the others here on the alert, and for other reasons, I never feared for the life of the Constitution. Keep up the good work.

Gregory, enjoy the day! You're on the winning side. This is a good day for America.

johnNJ: I don't think Giuliani lost because of his ethnicity...

hilzoy: on racism vs. sexism, I think the latter is MORE pervasive and MORE insidious. It's true that >50% is more than johnNJ: I don't think Giuliani lost because of his ethnicity...

hilzoy: on racism vs. sexism, I think the latter is MORE pervasive and MORE insidious. It's true that >50% is more than

That said, I really believe the most important reason we didn't elect a woman president yesterday, is that there was a more compelling candidate. Back in February, my wife and I were agonizing over whether to support Barack or Hillary. It wasn't until the morning of the primary that we both decided that, while we wanted both, he was our choice. I'm glad he's our president. (And I'm also glad she's our senator.)

Sometime during the primaries, for no obvious reason, it occurred to me to reflect on the question: suppose I were a black parent: how would I handle the conversation with my child about whether or not she could be President? The idea that in America anyone can be President is so basic to our national mythology that, I imagined, the question would come up at some point; at any rate, I couldn't assume that it would not. What would I say? Would I try to explain to my child that while perhaps, in her lifetime, an African-American might become President, it didn't seem that likely at the moment? Would I lie? Or would I say that of course she could become President, even though I didn't believe it, on the grounds that I didn't know for a fact that it wasn't so, and that I should not blight her hopes without certain knowledge?

I didn't know what I would choose. But I hated the fact that these seemed to be the options. I hated it all the more because, as I said, the idea that in America anyone can become President is so basic, and so if I believed that neither I nor my child could ever become President, that thought would have to take the form: it is part of what America is that we think that anyone can become President, but it is not true for people who look like we do. We are exceptions. These ideals do not apply to us.

I don't get this. First of all, regardless of the race, ethnicity, sex, religion, etc., only a fraction so small as to be indistinguishable from zero of the people who work hard and do right and have talent become President (a much larger proportion of those who become present fail on one or more of the "work hard", "do right", or "have talent"—the current incumbent seems to have failed most of his life on all three.)

People who believe that what has been achieved are all that can be achieved never achieve anything. And, while Obama is a historic first, he's not the first historic first in America, and almost anyone who wants to become President in this country has an almost insurmountable set of barriers to leap over that if they can't believe that they can exceed the probable, they'll never get there (and, arguably, they should never get there, because they won't really be suited to lead.)

Now, I didn't have black parents (being adopted early on by white parents), but I am, like Obama, a mixed race person perceived generally as "black". I'm also Catholic. When the issue came up for me, my parents said the same types of things you'd suggest you couldn't believe in for blacks—they did point out that no one that wasn't white had ever become President, but also that, at one point in their lifetime, neither had anyone who wasn't Protestant, and that despite fear of Kennedy's Catholicism being used in the campaign against him, he was elected.

No child should ever be told they can only follow in others footsteps, only do what has already been done.

Not sure what happened in that comment: I meant:

50% is more than 13%, but 19th (amendment) is more than 15th; women got the vote half a century after blacks.

I see the conservative movement as being a powerful reaction to the Civil Rights movement. The Civil Rights movement was among other things a major effort to use government to change society in such a way as to excise the institutionalized practices of White Supremacy. I have spent much of my adult life hearing conservatives here in Texas stating that government did not have the power to change society and culture.

The conservative movement appears to me to have been an abandonment of that conservative idea that government cannot change society. Instead they have taken control of government and tried to change the very nature of America into their free-market libertarian fantasy in which every individual is an independent business and independent decision-makers on his own, with no consideration of social, cultural or group effects.

But there is a difference between America's cultural belief that slavery, racism, segregation and white supremacy are wrong and the conservative's effort to impress their libertarian deregulation small-government fantasies onto American society. The Civil Rights movement was and remains an expression of the deepest character of American society. The conservative fantasy is not such an expression of the best nature of America.

Government was used in association with the Civil Rights Movement to remove institutional barriers to the full expression of what America is and wants to be. The conservative movement has been an effort to use government power to fundamentally change what America is and wants to be.

I think that conservatives have proven their argument to be true. Government cannot change the basic nature of a nation, certainly not in any short period of time less than a generation. The Civil Rights movement was not such a transformational effort. It was America trying to become a better America. This election shows that the nature of America is not going to be changed into the conservative fantasy. Government simply isn't that powerful.

the whole thing is simply amazing! even though i was less nervous than most liberals were in the final weeks, it is still truly amazing to see it actually come to fruition, solidly, with what even fox news suggested was "a mandate." the people have spoken and elected a truly exceptional man, offspring of a Kenyan immigrant and a woman from Kansas. a self-made man, as most Democratic presidents are.

in the coming days you are going to here A TON about how america is a "center-right" nation. i'm not so sure about that. think of it this way- the democrat won the plurality of the popular vote in FOUR OF THE LAST FIVE presidential election. they also have nearly swept every competitive congressional race in the last TWO elections.

i don't know that it means the nation is a "center left" nation, but it does mean that the dominant political movement of my life is dead- Reaganism. trickle down economics and trusting big business to always do the right thing in a casino environment is over with. it has been thoroughly repudiated. government may not always be the solution, but it is not always the problem as many of the problems we are in could have been dealt with a lot earlier if the greenspans and norquists and delays and george w bush of this world lived on planet earth instead of some ayn rand fantasy world.

the only other positive big political event of my lifetime was the bringing down of the berlin wall. beyond that, though, what have we had to feel good about? impeaching the most popular president of the last half century (read the numbers), the horrific disputed election of 2000 that lead george bush who did not even win a plurality of the vote in the nation to rule as if he had received the kind of mandate president elect barack obama has indeed received. then the big bush disasters: 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown.

this is truly a moment of great hope for this nation. the country is ready to turn the page on bush and reagan and chart a new 21st century path forward. america is ALREADY stronger than she was yesterday- on account of electing a man that the world can respect and that increases their respect for us. thomas jefferson and the founding fathers understood that it is important to be respected as a nation and nothing wipes away the hideous stain of george walker bush's failures better than electing a minority, a Democrat, a man of exceptional intellect and understanding and a man who truly believes that working together, all americans can create a better future. a community organizer, Constituional law professor, and the first president from illinois since abraham lincoln (whose 200th b-day is coming up soon- how fitting).

for the first time in my adult life, i am REALLY PROUD of my country. we face enormous challenges but have undoubtedly elected the right man at the right time to lead us. out of great crisis grows great opportunity, and a President Barack Hussein Obama will have the opportunity to positively effect the future of this nation like no man since franklin delano roosevelt.

a quick shoutout to john mccain who, although running the sleaziest and lease substantive campaign i've ever seen and disqualifying himself to the american people with his unconscionable choice of sarah palin for vice president and his erratic gimmickry surrounding campaigning and the financial crisis (and please, "joe the plumber," GO AWAY), he nonetheless gave a very good concession speech (over many loud booos from his crowd) and did reach out his hand to the next president and has begun to try to heal the many festering wounds he has attempted to profit on and expose. its hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube when you've convinced a good quarter to a third of the country that the president elect is basically the embodiment of all that is evil and wrong, but mr. mccain did take one step forward in trying to ease the hatred oozing from his side.

will the republican party reform itself and serve as a useful opposition to the democrats? so far the answer seems to be no: if sarah palin is the next leader of the gop that would be great for democrats and bad for democracy. already the cable news channels are trying to spin this away from what it clearly is- a thorough beatdown of republican orthodoxy. yet many in that movement still insist it was that they "went away from their principles." its simply another variation on the idea that conservatism never fails it is only failed- by apostates like george bush and tom delay who abandoned their principles.

no no no no no. sorry, but george bush was the most conservative (and worst) president since hoover. he is far MORE conservative than the nation. he had a free reign under extraordinary circumstances (9/11) to do whatever he wanted and had entire control of the federal government. and now everyone sees the mess that was left behind.

when republicans decide to tone down the culture wars, move into the 21st century by embracing well-accepted science, understand that the middle class needs more than a few crumbs for the ELITES to continue to prosper, stops trying to undo the new deal which the voters have reaffirmed over and over again, and embraces a diverse, multi-cultural world, they will not deserve the respect or votes of the american people.

G-d bless America. may obama live to serve out his terms(s) in good health. may he help bridge the divides that have made this a red-blue nation up until now. may he continue to understand and expand on the reality that it is not every man for himself- we are all in this together.

dr. king's dream is a big step closer to realization.

USA! USA! USA!

"cars honking"

"When the lights came on, all over the world......."

Obama won because he presented the electorate with an intelligent, articulate, composed candidate with views acceptable to mainstream americans.

He was able to overcome being black due to his talents and also because the GW Bush regime presented such a disaster that it opened the door.

That said, I think a barrier has been broken... probably forever. National level minority and female candidates will become common within a few decades.

Marler wrote: I think that my strongest criticisms of the Republicans

...were tepid at best and came amidst your carrying enough water for them to fill Lake Erie. No one who is familiar with your years of bad faith advocacy of the Republicans' mendacity, incompetence corruption, and tyrrany buys your sudden bipartisanship for a second. As was pointed out elsewhere, your sucking up to the winning side, after the indisputable repudiation of everything you've sacrificed your honor, reputation and credibility for, is utterly pathetic.

But with you and the others here on the alert, and for other reasons, I never feared for the life of the Constitution.

With jackasses like you stooping to any amount of dishonesty to defend the ones who were pissing on the Constitution while they were doing it, I did. But all that dishonesty and aouthoritarianism, and your enthusiastic participation in it, couldn't forge a permanent Republican majority. Shame on you for your reprehensible work.

We need honest conservatives, Marler. You spent years proving you aren't one, and so we don't need you. Piss off.

One other thing -- winning side or no, I and your other betters here have been on the right side since way before your boy Bush took office and started fucking up this country.

The fact that you don't seem to understand that fact reveals again, as with your support of the Reptiles, your craven need to suck up to the winning side. Shame on you, Marler.

cmdicely: Put another way:

People can do what has never been done before.

It's been done before!

Jim H,

"50% is more than 13%, but 19th (amendment) is more than 15th; women got the vote half a century after blacks."

Although technically true, that's highly misleading. Although the 15th amendment was passed in 1870, by the early 20th century the right to vote was taken away in practice from most blacks in the South, not to be restored until 1965. Women were never, to my knowledge, prevented from voting anywhere after the 19th amendment was passed in 1920.

Hilzoy,

You said "I had always thought that it meant that we'd be likely to see a woman become President long before we'd see an African-American become President."

Historically the institutional barriers that kept women in second class status in America have very consistently fallen roughly a generation after similar barriers that held people of color down. The African-American battle for full civil rights has consistently been the vanguard for similar social and legal changes for other races, religious groups and minorities.

I suspect that is true, and that it is true at least in part because the more intractable problem of social inequality in America remains race-based, so it gets dealt with first. The results of those efforts then create models and processes that can be adopted by other groups that consider themselves oppressed in similar ways and which can adopt many of the same social methods to change how they are perceives.

It's my opinion that the intractability of racial problems is based on the ability to segregate the races, something that has been practiced all over America, legally in the Southern states and more informally in the rest of America. It has been almost impossible to segregate between the genders, so we all know a lot more people of the opposite gender than we know people of different race. (It occurs to me that the Muslim cultures have actually done their best to segregate the genders, so that the problems of unequal status between the genders is a lot more clear there than it is here.)

Frankly I am not surprised that social equality for African-Americans routinely proceeds similar movements for women. The civil rights movement for Blacks has also preceded a similar movement for Hispanics and Asians. The civil rights movement for women has preceded a similar movement for LGBT's also. Again, the African-American civil rights movement has provided the templates for the other groups.

The battles will continue - and properly so.

It was amazing here in the District last night. Many of our neighbors are elderly blacks, and to see the looks on their faces was just priceless. Something I will never forget.

However, as for your: "2) After eight years of assault on our Constitution, we have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law. I cannot express what this means to me," I can only respond by saying that maybe the main text of the Constitution is safe, but the 4th Amendment (and thus the rest of the Bill of Rights) does not sit so steadily. Don't forget our Constitutional Scholar's inexplicable and erroneous vote to expand warrantless wiretapping. One would think a Constitutional scholar would not have screwed that one up. Yes, I know what you mean and I am extremely happy to have someone who will for the most part respect the laws of the land. But it does not change the fact that when the chips were on the table Obama dropped the ball badly on that one.

Ahh, Hilz?

"We have elected a President who teaches Constitutional law..." who was also a ....

FISA 45 percenter.

Having fun drinking that Kool-Aid like water?

Teaching constitutional law doesn't mean that you necessarily teach a good interpretation of it, or put that into practice.

you people are making me cry again.

to those who worry about a woman president or a gay president or a jewish president -- it will happen. you don't have to wait until it actually does to believe that it will.

what president-elect obama did was transcend race in his candidacy. i am a 51 year old white caucasian female and although his race is a wonderful symbol in terms of "breaking a barrier," he succeeded because he is able to speak to what we all share in common -- love of country, love of community and a deep and abiding conviction that we all can do better.

the best part about it? people understand that the fight has just begun. the difference is, we will have a president who is truly working for us.

thank you, america, thank you.

While it is extraordinary that an African-American has been elected president, I find it even more extraordinary that a person of mixed race has been elected president. I remember the first time I ever saw a mixed race couple (this would have been 1970 or so) and my mother, who was no more bigoted than most people, was somewhat disapproving. Her concern was that the children of any such couple would necessarily be spurned by both sides of their heritage - and in 1970, this was not an unreasonable conclusion.

Look at it this way - at the time of his birth in 1961, Obama's very existence as a mixed-race child born in wedlock would have constituted evidence of a felony in some states.

Yesterday at the polls, someone planted a poster-sized collage amidst all the yard sign. It consisted, mostly, of pictures of Obama and words like "hope". But it also had a scrap of paper on it with this sentiment:

Rosa sat, so Martin could walk.
Martin walked, so Barack could run.
Barack ran, so our children can fly.

Apt, no?

And yet, today, prop 8 passed in california, mostly due to the large black voting block that turned out for Obama, voting down rights for others, that they themselves had to fight for.

Non-christian, or openly gay, not likely to be president for a very long time.

"Sure honey, you can be president. Just stay in the closet and enter into a sham straight marriage."

cmdicely hits the nail on the head with this comment:

"No child should ever be told they can only follow in others footsteps, only do what has already been done."

My first thought on reading Hilzoy's musings over what she would say to her own child was that this is a completely academic conversation inside her head that has absolutely nothing to do with what a parent would actually say to their child. Virtually every parent would tell their 6 year old son or daughter that they can be President if they work hard, want it bad enough, or something along those lines. In my opinion it would be utterly irresponsible to say otherwise. A little kid asks you that and you launch into a treatise on race in America?

And yes, homosexuals, atheists, etc. may still have a long time to wait before they get their President, but the question was what would you tell a child. The kid who is young enough to ask, "Daddy, can I be President someday" is too young to identify as a homosexual (or heterosexual!), an atheist (or a true follower of any religion), etc. For goodness sake, these are little children we are talking about here. How about we just let kids go back to getting dirty in the back yard and tell them all that they are fantastic and can do whatever they put their minds to - I am pretty sure that is what Obama heard growing up.