But there's more.

Obama's success suggests that America edges closer and closer to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of evaluating people based on content of character rather than color of skin. Obama, on the 42nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the civil rights march in Selma, Ala., said: "The previous generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way. They took us 90 percent of the way there. We still got that 10 percent in order to cross over to the other side."

Even Jackson, in one of his "nuts" apologies, said of Obama: "He's running the last lap of a 54-year marathon. He is running that race. I am a part of that race."

So, again, why the ugly, demeaning remark?

Jackson, and his race-card-waving cohorts, derive stature, power, significance and self-enrichment by claiming that racism remains a serious problem in America. After complaining about the lack of minority beer distributorships, for example, Jackson's sons ended up with a lucrative Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Chicago. Author Kenneth Timmerman, in his book "Shakedown," describes the Jackson modus operandi -- playing the race card for self-enrichment, as well as that of friends and family.

Rather than display pleasure at America's obvious progress, or pride in his role in getting us there, the anachronistic Jackson now morphs into a shrinking, petulant, self-pitying "leader" -- with little left to lead.

Good news for America; bad news for Jackson.