I Was Black Before The Election

President Obama poked fun at suggestions that racism is behind opposition to his health care plans.
Speaking to TV host David Letterman on CBS' The Late Show, he deadpanned: "I think it's important to realise that I was actually black before the election."
As the audience whooped with laughter at the subversive remark, Letterman kept up the joke, asking the President: "How long have you been a black man?"
Returning to his point, Obama said it was an honour that the American people had chosen him as their leader.
"That, I think, tells you a lot about where the country is at", he said.
He suggested that the fierce objections to his health reform proposals came from a "certain segment of society" that had a tendency to get "riled up" whenever a President tried to make a significant change.
"One of the things that you sign up for in politics is that folks yell at you," he said.

President Obama also used his time on the Late show couch to acknowledge that Americans were weary of the war in Afghanistan, and said US troops were performing heroically there and in Iraq. But he kept things light-hearted as he turned to the subject of his young daughters Malia and Sasha.
The girls "basically just goofed off all summer" he said, adding that he wished he could have done the same.
Obama's appearance on Letterman's popular late-night show wrapped up a media blitz seemingly aimed at putting him in front of as many cameras as possible to sell his message to a sceptical public. He was a guest on five different talk shows on Sunday morning and had been on "everything but the Food Channel," a Republican senator remarked.
Yet the President also had a joke ready when Letterman questioned what he was doing on his show.
"The main reason I'm here? I want to see that heart-shaped potato," he quipped, referring to an audience member featured earlier in the programme who had turned up with the quirky vegetable.