Opinion: Top o’ the mornin’ O’Bama!

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Is he a little bit black and a little bit white, a little bit country and a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, a little bit Christian and a little bit Muslim, a little bit Camel and a little bit Winston, or is he a little bit Cork and a little bit Killarney? In a suspiciously well timed pre-St. Patrick’s Day announcement, presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has come out of the closet as a son of the Old Sod. Obama, pictured here chatting with a constituent, traces his Irish roots through great-great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney, who arrived in New York from the Emerald Isle in 1850 (the same year several of my own ancestors are said first to have fouled these shores—coincidence?). An old friend of mine had a racial theory that the Irish have crooked fingers—he pointed to my own bony digits as proof, and to his own to claim that he had the blood of some long-lost Irishman mixed in with his African genes. That convinced me!

Alcohol-free St. Pat’s recommendations: If you’re interested in more surprise-black-Irish entertainment, the highly sentimental Hill Harper/Donal McCann vehicle The Nephew is not as bad as you might expect. But for a searingly realistic look into the soul of Ireland, I give an unqualified, and unironic, recommendation to the scandalously underappreciated Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and Erin Go Bama.