To me, race is not all about grievance. It is also about pride and empathy and humanity and understanding the value of difference. But along with that, there are also expectations that we should set for ourselves and for others. We should expect to be treated as equal citizens.

Simply as an exercise in efficient politics, Obama '08 rewrote the textbook. His accomplishment was historic and one that transformed how race and politics intersect in our society. Obama is the leading edge of this change, but his success is merely the ripple in a pond that grows deeper every day.

Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to land a reporting job at 'The Washington Post,' which pretty much put me in a state of constant awe. Bob Woodward would dish up ice cream sundaes for anyone stuck working on the weekend.

My job as a reporter is not to know what I think.

People who are in politics to be right all the time would be better off taking up fly-fishing. It's less dangerous. Politics that is not applied in the real world and doesn't address the real challenges and paradoxes and agonies is a hobby.

I'd actually call myself pretty much a liberal. A progressive liberal. Because I do think that government is there to be a provider of services for people who cannot provide for themselves.

Politics only makes the difficult challenge of marriage even harder, with the demands of the job and the public spotlight it casts on a union.

Politics has long been a place where fear and loathing are exploited: fear of progress, fear of the unknown, fear of the other, fear of our own neighbors.