Wrong Color

Barack Obama will most likely not be the next President of the United States and it all has to do with color.

But it's not the color of his skin that may stop him. No, not that.

It's the color of his eyes.

Get this: Even though only 20 percent of all Americans have blue, gray or hazel eyes nearly every American president since 1900 has had blue, gray or hazel eyes. And 38 of our 43 presidents have had blue eyes. Obama's eyes are brown. Hillary's are blue/grey. McCain's are blue.

These astonishing facts about presidential eye color are reported by Michael Medved on his blog. Medved says he was tipped off to this by a friend of his who is a film and advertising composer. Medved did a bit of research and managed to ascertain the color of presidential eyes beginning with George Washington (penetrating blue/grey) and continuing all the way up to George W (vividly blue).

And this, too: The few presidents with brown or darker eyes did not fare well. Lyndon Johnson was hounded out of office and Richard Nixon was forced to resign because of the Watergate scandal. And the others? Andrew Johnson (impeached) Chester Arthur (Remember him?) and John Q. Adams (seated after a disputed election and served only one term before being voted out).

As a brown-eyed person myself I was pretty much blown away by this history which I had never heard about. It's got to be disheartening for so many of us with soft, sympathetic, loving brown eyes.

But look at it this way: As more people of color emerge, so too will dark eyes ascend. In other words, Obama could be eyeing the future in more ways than one. Still, this marks yet another area where he's called upon to be a trail blazer. It's a heavy burden.