I get what people are saying: Obama's election is proof that anyone can be president in America. We've always said that, of course, but it's tough to believe it when every president from General Washington on down has looked a certain way.

Some academics are worried that people will now forget about urban poverty - a subject we're quite familiar with here in Rochester, NY:� "We've made an African-American president. What ELSE do they want?" Although I think that those who so easily dismiss utter poverty, drugs, broken families and schools, and children being slain in the streets, were never going to be part of the solution, anyway.

But. But. But.

What if we elected an extraordinary black man, president. And that's it. Does Obama's victory mean that anybody can be president or that one handsome, charismatic black man with that ineffable ability to be a leader and inspirer of men, can be?

There are people who transcend race, and then people like Obama, or Oprah, who� transcend flesh and bone and seem as old as the earth itself. I didn't see Oprah's astonishing success - talk about a hard-scrabble upbringing - lead to a surge in successful black women in the entertainment industry.

OK.

Couple more.

John McCain. What a gracious concession speech. Where was THAT guy during the campaign?

The "Bush drag" is being given partial credit everywhere for McCain's loss. Has an administration ever been so alienated from its people?

Colin Powell. His stirring and courageous endorsement of Obama redeemed him a bit in my eyes, but our relationship still needs major work. Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld and the rest used Powell to sell the war, and he let them. Those who didn't trust Bush, etc., trusted Powell. He sold the war to the kitchen tables of America. To me, to a considerable extent, he'll always be Bush's bag man.