A cautionary tale - the Homework Assignment

From The Czar of Muscovy writing at The Gormogons:

Homework Assignment
And the girl turned when she heard her father enter the room. �Doing your homework, honey?�

�Yes, Dad,� she said, resignedly. �I have to do a biography.�

The father perked up, curious. �Who�s the subject?� he asked, secretly hoping as all fathers do that it might just be him.

�Barack Obama,� she replied.

�Who?� asked the father.

�Barack Obama,� she repeated. �He was a president or something.�

The father laughed. �Oh, sure,� he said. �He was President of the United States, a very long time ago. Long before I was born,� he said, carefully. �Actually, before your grandfather was born. I remember learning a little bit about him. He was a great man.�

�Really,� asked the girl, thinking at once that her dad could readily be a shortcut to doing her own research. �What was he famous for?�

The father leaned against the doorway and frowned. �Well, let�s see. He ended racism.�

�What�s that?� she asked with a giggle.

�It was this crazy belief from a long time ago that certain people were better than others simply because of their race. A person who believed he was better than someone else was called a �racist.� It wasn�t terribly widespread at all, but there were a couple of people�mostly on his side�who believed it. Anyway, he had this very clever plan to get rid of it. His side called everyone on the other side racists, for pretty much everything, no matter what. If you disagreed with him, you were a racist. If you wanted to keep more of your money, you were a racist. If you believed that the government should represent the will of the governed, you were a racist. Anyway, after a while, people caught on that the whole thing was a big joke, and that by calling everyone a racist, nobody was, and the whole country realized racism was over. I think.�

�Oh, I get it,� she said. �What else did he do?�

Heh... Read the rest at the site -- it also covers the Unions, the Middle East and Hope and Change(tm). The post concludes with:

�Oh, yeah!� she exclaimed. �I�m surprised we don�t get his birthday off.�

The dad frowned. �They do in Kenya, I think.�