So John Derbyshire has been fired by National Review. I was on vacation for most of the controversy, looking at giant trees in Sequoia National Park while I was supposed to be opining on yet another racial controversy. It’s tempting to leave it at that, and yet I feel I have a thought or two to offer.

Rather than simply putting my hands on my hips and clucking my tongue, I’d like to offer some of my own personal experiences, some of which are retreads of stories I have told before — but all of which will hopefully explain why I found Derbyshire’s generalizations far too sweeping, to put it mildly.

This post is going to assume that you are familiar with the Derbyshire piece that stirred all this controversy. And if you’re going to start actively offering opinions in the comments, I suggest that you read the actual piece, and not simply the caricatures offered by Derbyshire’s critics.

That way, you’ll understand why I think the actual piece itself is so off target and unsettling.

Let me start with a piece I wrote in 2007 that I think sums up much of what I think of the life that takes place in what sheltered white people think of as “the ghetto”:

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It’s a Politico article, and we boycott Politico here, so the link goes to Hot Air Headlines:

Their options, though, are limited: Many of Obama’s biggest achievements — health care reform, financial reform, the stimulus package — are deeply divisive. The ones that are the most widely popular — the killing of Osama bin Laden and the ending of the Iraq War — are foreign policy notches that don’t have much to do with the economy, which polls consistently show is the top concern among voters right now.

I have carefully considered my response to this article, and have decided on the following. Ahem.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s slogan could not be more obvious.

“I am not Barack Obama!”

Sounds like a winner to me.

Submit your Obama campaign slogan below.

Your suggestions for Obama’s campaign slogan are welcome. Consider this a contest. Best one gets a mention in a post on Wednesday.

We spent much of it traveling or I would have mentioned it earlier. Hope everyone had a great day.