He opened the manila folder grimly, and leafed through its contents.� It had arrived, fittingly, in an unmarked black envelope with no return address, and it contained photographs.� Of the perky blonde he had met in Las Vegas, the brown-haired event planner who had flown to see him in Australia.� That was a wild night.� Reflexively he rubbed the fingers of his right hand across his left wrist, remembering.

He went back further. In his mind he left his study, closing his eyes and thinking of that day, when he was ten, and he had beaten his father at golf.� He smiled.� Another memory surfaced, of children, chanting, �Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a tiger by the toe...�� Only, instead of �tiger,� they had said, �Ni**er.�� His smile disappeared.

Every boy needs his father, but his mother was the one who had made him want to compete so fiercely, to win.� His mother, who had left her family living in the Far East.� She had never taken on the faith of his father; and his father had never taken on hers, but, opening the folder once more, in trying times like these he found more solace in her religion than in his father�s.� He breathed in deeply.

His mind wandered to still-raw wounds, his parents� emotional separation. His father had had another wife despite being married to his mother. But it was mainly after his father�s death that he had become two different people, a Jekyll and Hyde.� His supporters would be disappointed.

They looked up to him, expected so much of him.� �The Chosen One.� �The power to impact nations.� It was too much. They were just words! he shouted inside his head.� Advertisements! Like Nike and Gillette and Gatorade! Yes, he was like Gatorade: Thirsty people will drink anything.� And he had made millions.

He didn�t regret marrying his wife.� He had two beautiful children.� But after that one day in 2004, the world began to look at him much differently.

Especially women.

Even the race of his choice of female companion had become an issue.� Well, his mother wasn�t black.� There was no reason for him to choose a black wife.� But, he sighed, he knew there would be political fallout from consorting with white women.� Even though his background spanned the globe―Africa, Asia, America―the U.S. media made everything about his life �racial�: he was always �the first black to�.

He looked again at the manila folder.� A note on its cover read, �We�ve been watching you.�� He opened up the folder to its last item.

It was a photo of him.� Embracing two girls. One looked nine years old, the other six.

I�m dead!� Ice water ran through his veins for the thousandth time.

He stood up, walked to the door, and, hesitating briefly, opened it.� A hundred flash bulbs went off, blinding him.� A voice to his right announced, �Ladies and gentlemen: the President of the United States of America...�� As his sight returned, he gazed at the applauding crowd.� Hope all you want, he thought.� There will be no change, not now. The people who had sent the folder had made it clear what he must do.� On torture, on Guantanamo, on land mines, on climate change, on health care, on bailing out corporations, on house foreclosures, on prosecuting the old regime, on the wars, on the wars....

On the desk behind him, sliding halfway out of the manila folder, lay the photograph of him embracing his two daughters, his wife smiling beside him.� On each of their faces was a blood-red �X�.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Jonathan David Farley, is the 2004 Harvard Foundation Distinguished Scientist of the Year. He is currently Teaching and Research Fellow teaching mathematics at the Institut f�r Algebra, Johannes Kepler Universit�t Linz, Linz, �sterreich Click here to contact Dr. Farley.