First he told us that because of his mixed heritage (white mother, African father), he was uniquely situated to bring the country together in unity and harmony; that somehow his bi-racial appeal would end the politics of divisiveness. He would be the transracial candidate. He was running as a qualified candidate for the presidency who happened to be black, not as a black candidate. The contrast with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton was at once stark and comforting to liberals suffused with white guilt.

Then the Jeremiah Wright controversy exploded and his long-term association with an anti-american racist raised serious doubts about his viability and uniqueness as one who could truly bridge the racial divide. He compounded his credibility problem by applying the post-modernist concept of contextualization as a justification for his pastor's hate-speech. Despite glowing reviews from an adoring mainstream press, his speech on race never addressed the issue of Jeremiah Wright's racism, it merely excused his inexcusable rantings as part of the "black experience" in America. His speech was entirely successful in positing two distinct standards for racism: one for whites, another for African-Americans.

Next he assured us that his involvement with Tony Rezco was a "dumb mistake". Initially, he gave no further elaboration. Later, he admitted that there was more to his association then he had previously admitted. His subsequent disclosures were all but drowned out by the noise generated by the publication of the lunatic rantings of his pastor.

Having now been mercilessly and appropriately mocked in a Saturday Night Live skit for being Obama's most vocal cheerleaders, perhaps now, the mainstream press will start to scrutinize more of his record, particularly his ascendant rise on the South Side of Chicago. What additional revelations await us? Only time will tell, but from what we already know, a disturbing pattern is emerging that seriously undermines the fiction created by his campaign that he has the character to be a transcendent candidate.

For the Democrats, the unvarnished truth is most unappealing: the candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are very much alike, the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. Her Waterloo was her most excellent Bosnian adventure,. exploding the fraudulent pretense of her acclaimed "experience"; for him, it was his twenty-year voluntary association in a congregation that makes a virtue of black separatism and excuses the racists ramblings of its preacher. For each of the two candidates, when we strip away all the carefully crafted mythologizing, all that is left is his race and her gender. Hardly sterling qualities to present in a general election to a public that has already grown quite weary and suspect of the continuing justification and inherent inequities of affirmative action policies.