What Michael Steele should have said:

Gadfly Michael Meyers celebrates the presidential hook shown to New York Governor David Paterson as the demolition of the cordon sanitaire that has protected mediocre New York black politicians.   What’s next? Meyers asks:

We can only imagine, only hope, what postracial judgments await. It could be only a matter of days before Obama calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and lowers the boom on Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, too, because, as Obama will put it to Pelosi: “Being black is not enough: The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has to pay his taxes and be above ethical reproach and not constantly under investigation. For the sake of the party and for the sake of Democrats to maintain some semblance of credibility, Rangel must step aside.”

Perhaps that’s wishful thinking. But a postracial American can live in hope.

No sign, however, that Obama’s color-blind booting of Paterson has undercut the conceit that white criticism of Obama is race-based; NPR this morning earnestly pursued the “racist pushback to Obama” story from Selma.  And still no sign from the authors of that conceit how we distinguish legitimate criticism of a black president from race-driven criticism.  Steve Chapman has an excellent column in the Chicago Tribune on the American tradition of hating presidents, white or, now, black.  I have to say, though, for me, the more strident the rhetoric against a perceived political enemy, the more it produces the opposite of its intended effect.