MSNBC: WASHINGTON - It popped out casually, a throwaway line as he talked to reporters about finding the right puppy for his young daughters.I think Obama was just using some self-deprecating humor. No need to read any racial discomfort into it. It seems the media has a long way to go to figure out that it needs to grow up too. It needs to tackle more important issues and not make mountains out of molehills.
But with just three offhanded words in his first news conference as president-elect, Barack Obama reminded everyone how thoroughly different his administration — and inevitably, this country — will be.
"Mutts like me."
By now, almost everyone knows that Obama's mother was white and father was black, putting him on track to become the nation's first African-American president. But there was something startling, and telling, about hearing his self-description — particularly in how offhandedly he used it.
Another thing, the media will need to learn that not every comment Obama makes will be related to race.
Another take:
Swamp: "Mutts like me.''
With those words - mouthed about the pound puppies that the Obama family might be looking at in search of a new dog for the White House - Barack Obama has casually reduced the sensitive question of race in America to a simple matter of familiar melting pot dynamics.
"There was something startling, and telling, about hearing his self-description -- particularly in how offhandedly he used it,'' the Associated Press' Alan Fram writes about Obama's casual response to a question about searching for a puppy for his daughters at the first press conference of the president-elect.
"The message seemed clear -- here is a president who will be quite at ease discussing race,'' Fram writes - "a complex issue as unresolved as it is uncomfortable for many to talk about openly. And at a time when whites in the country are not many years from becoming the minority.''
