Naivety

New York Times columnist Charles Blow rightly questions House Majority Whip James Clyburn and others who naively proclaim that with the inauguration of Barack Obama: "Every child has lost every excuse."

What? That’s where I have to put my foot down. That’s going a bridge too far.

I’m a big proponent of personal responsibility, but children too often don’t have a choice. They are either prisoners of their parentage or privileged by it. Some of their excuses are hollow. But other excuses are legitimate, and they didn’t magically disappear when Obama put his left hand on the Lincoln Bible.