When a stray elbow during a pickup basketball game gave President Obama a split lip, it got a week of heavy media attention. But if that wasn't enough for you, now the Washington Post's Courtland Milloy has dedicated his column to the question, What can we learn about Obama from this accidental and minor injury? The answer, of course, is everything.

In a few wild and freewheeling sentences immediately after summarizing the incident, Milloy connects it to the federal pay freeze, race, bipartisanship, the bailouts (which Bush, not Obama, implemented), WikiLeaks, and perhaps best of all, the transformation of an adjective, "milquetoast," into a noun.

Man up, Obama. Let us see you with blood on your teeth and fire in your eyes. Or does being the first black president mean you can never show yourself to be a man in full?

Now he wants a pay freeze for federal employees, announced just in time for Christmas - and only two months after proposing to give them a modest raise.

Did the Republican leadership pop him in the mouth, too?

Obama's decision will be a devastating blow to the Washington area's economy, not to mention a betrayal of some of his most loyal supporters and the nation's most dedicated public servants. After throwing nearly a trillion dollars to rescue banks and big business, he turns around and picks the pocket of everyday working people.

Has there ever been a president who treated his sworn enemies so much better than his proven friends?

What a milquetoast.

How does the president respond to the unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of classified documents? White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that Obama "was, as an understatement, not pleased" with WikiLeaks.

Here are the other issues that Milloy addresses by way of Obama's split lip:

• The oil spill
• The 2008 Democratic primary
• Race, again
• Tom DeLay
• Race, a third time

Milloy concludes by noting that Kathleen Parker and Maureen Dowd have criticized Obama. Milloy declares that their criticism is especially embarrassing for Obama because the columnists are white women.

But for a black president to apparently choose to be the Great Placator is downright embarrassing. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times calls Obama "a 46-year-old virgin"; The Post's Kathleen Parker says he acts like the nation's "first female president."

You know it's bad when a white woman tag team can play the dozens with a black man and score unanswered points left and right.

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