This morning, on Chris Matthews’ interminable “progressive” slamfest – yes, we watch so you don’t have to – David Maraniss tells the story of young Barry Obama, then a 6th grader at Punahou, the exclusive prep school in Hawaii that no child should attend, who entered a school tennis tournament, tennis being “his first sport.” Having seen him throw out the first pitch at “Cominsky Field” and shoot baskets with real basketball players he should return to tennis.

As MaranASS tells the story, as Barry approached the board to see where see was seeded and who he’d play next, his coach admonished him:  “Don’t touch it Barry, you’ll smudge it.” As Barry tells it, he and “all of his friends” knew what the coach was saying, his color would rub off.

First, given that Punahou is famously multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, and “liberal,” that it would employ a bigot is utter nonsense.

Second, anyone who has ever participated in a tournament sport knows that brackets are maintained on a white board, – ooh, that’s sounds racist – call it a dry erase board and updated with an erasable pen because things change! Of course it would smudge if a snotty little brat touched something he wasn’t supposed to!

If it’s true that young Barry took coach’s comment as racist, young Barry was as ill-prepared for school as he is for the presidency.

That MaranASS didn’t question the veracity of the story or the storyteller suggests that he went to Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard law.