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I knew Tavis Smiley's holier-than-thou harping on then-candidate Obama (for among other things, choosing to not participate in his sponsored events) would come back to bite him in the butt .

From this MSNBC story , choice quotes from Tavis Smiley on Barack Obama: "There is no such thing in America as race transcendence, and Obama’s going to find that out real soon.” “There’s no such thing as ‘post-racial’ in America, because if you push the envelope too far, you’re going to hear about it.” “Just because Barack Obama is black, doesn’t mean he gets a pass on being held accountable on issues that matter to black people. I’m not an Obama critic or a McCain critic. The term itself is dismissive and insulting.” “I want to do what I always try to do, which is to be authentic in my coverage. I’m an advocacy journalist, not a journalist in the traditional sense. I believe my role in the media is to get people to re-examine the assumptions they hold.” It appears that in Smiley's World, race will always be a problem, and because of this, politicians like Barack Obama are beholden to deal with it. The flaw with this logic is that race issues are not just a black/white thing. ...

Apparently, there's a shortage of prominent and successful black people tsk-tsking Barack Obama (like he doesn't get enough heat from the Clinton campaign, the McCain campaign, and the hard right). Now Tavis Smiley piles on. Like Prof. Harris-Lacewell, I'm trying to understand his motives . The last thing Sen. Obama needs is to be worried about passing the Black Enough Checklist. Maybe is he makes Samuel L. Jackson his VP, people will shut the hell up.