While it's certainly true that the Mandela comparison is silly there's a much more important bit of intel to be gathered from this article; Mr. Keller inadvertently blurts out the reason BHO appeals to many Whites.
Here's the meat:
And the other thing is that both of them [Mandela and Obama], in a way, transcended race — at least, to a degree transcended race. Colin Powell used to use this line when people used to try to draw him into conversations about race and what it was like to be the first black secretary of state, the first black this, the first black that, and he would say, "I ain't that black." And what I think what he meant by that was not just that he was light-skinned, but that he didn't grow up as preoccupied by race as a lot of other African-Ameircans who rose to prominence.
And Something of the same thing can be said about either Mandela or Obama — that they somehow rose above race while still clearly being black.
[...]
Which implies that "rising above race" is -
a.) The key to success
and
b.) A special cross Blacks must carry - not, mind you, because of continuing White supremacism, but rather, because of a Black 'preoccupation' with racial issues. This isn't something thrust upon Blacks, but something Blacks are clinging to in spite of being "90 percent of the way there."
This echoes Wojtek's comments of a few weeks ago (back when he was applauding Obama) that BHO was successful because he avoided "ghetto politics".
In a funny way, it also echoes the comments of my undergrad history prof who, after hearing me lecture on the Long March commented on how fascinating it was that a Black kid "from the inner city" knew so much about China. I replied that no one thought it odd that a dusty-assed White guy from Oxford was a China scholar: surely such a fellow is no more Chinese than me. Why was it so unusual for a Black guy to have a similarly cross-cultural interest?
It was unusual because in my prof's eyes I was "transcending race". Which is never something White people are almost never described as doing, no matter where they go or what they do (are Swedish NGO do-gooders in Afghanistan seen as "transcending race"?) - a consequence of the luxury bestowed by being the measure against which all other people are judged.
.d.