One nice label can fit us all

It's a common theme at the convention. If Barack Obama wins, we'll have our first "African-American" president. It seems Democrats didn't get the memo: hyphenated heritage became passé after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans learned that we're all hated equally abroad.

And no, Barack Obama would not be an African-American president. He's not from Africa. We'd have a president who's an American. Period.

Liberal Democrats seem obsessed with the hyphenation game, in which American citizens are identified as part of some far away country and culture first, and America second. It implies a victim status, a deficit in community standing that can and should be resolved by government.

We heard hyphenation politics Monday when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the third most powerful person in government, boasted to the entire country of being the first female speaker of the House. That's impressive.

Then she informed the country that she's also the first "Italian-American" to serve as speaker of the House. As if Italian heritage somehow served as an obstacle to success that she overcame for all Americans of Italian heritage. Give us a break, Speaker Pelosi.

If one is president of the United States, or speaker of the United States House of Representatives, then one should be an American through and through. This country is a melting pot, and there's not an American alive who couldn't choose to hyphenate and imply some kind of special status.

At some point, the first Lebanese-Israeli-Panamanian-American gets elected dogcatcher in Springfield. Who cares?

Barack Obama is arguably a great American. He is not, however, a great "African-American." He's an American-born citizen of the United States with some African heritage. He's half Kansan, half African, and 100 percent American.

If we're going to obsess over a person's lineage, the why not call Obama an African-Kansan-white-black American? Nancy Pelosi, likewise, isn't an Italian-American. She's an American. That should be good enough for someone who has made it to the third highest office in the land.