Is it about race?

Jimmy Carter may be on to something when he played the race card the other day, suggesting that Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst and other criticism is race-based. But then again, maybe he's wrong.

It's rarely about just race. America is too complex to be explained so simply. If it were just about race, Clinton wouldn't have had such a rough go. Notwitstanding being named the "first Black president", he was a white guy. Clinton survived because he knew how to play the game better than the right-wingers who were out to get him.

John Kerry, about as white as they come and rich to-boot, wasn't quite so adept. The swiftboaters sunk his candidacy.

Carter, another white dude, faced attacks on both sides of the political aisle.

But political affiliation can't explain it all. It can't explain why only 5 of the 22 children in my 4th grade daughter's class were permitted to watch the president's pep talk to the nation's school children. Political affiliation can't fully explain why so many people who would benefit from health care reform have rejected reform because it is proposed by Obama. What else explains why death threats aimed at Obama have skyrocketed?

Add to the mix the non-stop race baiting by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Video cameras catch black school children laughing while white kids are attacked. According to Rush, that's Obama's America. What? Really? Like the dozens of racially motivated events in the Before-Obama era that any moderately informed person could list off the top of their head? Was that Bush's America or Reagan's America?

I never thought I'd live to see a Black president in theWhite House. Will I live long enough to see the country have an honest dialog on race?