Bear with me folks. This story will have a point.

A few years ago, Indiana fired its legendary coach, Bob Knight, and appointed his first deputy, Mike Davis, as interim coach. Davis is black.

Davis was favored by the players; he was a breath of fresh air after more than two decades of Bob Knight; and fans quickly embraced him, giving him standing ovations and such.

Davis milked it shrewdly, saying he felt disrespected by wearing the "interim label." When the season ended -- and with no national search for alternatives -- Davis was made head coach. He had virtually no head coaching experience.

Davis had ups and downs. When he was up, he seemed egotistical, complaining about his contract and saying he might bolt for the NBA. When he was down, he would tell reporters that he just hoped to prove someone "like me" was "smart enough" to coach college basketball.

Naturally, the sports media adopted his racism theme. During a national championship game in prime time -- the pinnacle of Davis' career, Jim Nantz of CBS previewed the game and Davis' tenure. He noted the incredible odds that Davis overcame to become head coach in a place like Indiana -- a hotbed of kluxery, at least to CBS.

Anyway, this story doesn't have a happy ending. It does, however, have a point. Basketball coaches are loved or hated based on wins or losses, period. What matters is the quality of the product -- whether it's a basketball program or a health care plan.

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I think liberals are making a huge mistake by reading racism into criticism of Obama. It's a chicken or the egg question.

Which comes first, racial digs by the right, or the bogus critique of racism by the left, which in turn allows media savvy conservatives to play the race card in order to critique the critique?

A final story from Indiana will answer the question, in terms of strategy.

I don't think it occurred to Jim Nantz, but he did more than anyone else to sink Mike Davis' career, by irritating and alienating his support base. I don't know Jim Nantz' full name, but if it happens to be James Earl, then he would have two things in common with our 39th president: his name, and incredibly bad political instincts -- in the cause of "helping" a black man succeed.

Reportedly, the president will be on all three Sunday talk shows this weekend, plus two others.

This matches the "full Lewinsky" of 1998. For the uninitiated, Monica Lewinsky's lawyer went on all three talk shows -- an historic first -- the weekend after her arrest. He was widely mocked for this trifecta, as well as for the fact that he said very little of substance.

By the way, I stand by my prediction concerning health care bill collapse. It's a bold prediction. It is contra Karl Rove, who predicted tonight that the public option will muscle out the alternatives, per Tom Harkin's recent boast re: same.

The basis for my prediction is Olympia Snowe and filibuster vote counting in the Senate. Plus, today, a Washington Post poll said support for insurance taxes is midling, but when respondents were asked about taxes which could be passed on as higher premiums, support evaporated. That's pretty much fatal to the tax component of Obamacare.

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Joan, you are wrong that everyone is denying racial tensions. I take for granted that some exists.

But suppose you could prove that Critical Congressman A is motivated by a blend of health care concerns, budgetary concerns, and subtle digs at Obama's race. What would it prove, or accomplish?

Seems fair to say Dick Cheney did not understand inflation. Neither did I, until I started it studying it post-crash.

In a nutshell, monetary printing is per se inflationary. Eventually, it smoothes out -- everyone makes more; everything costs more.

But in the short term, it has bubble effects. On the bright side of the moon, it drives up prices (which seems good if it's an appreciable asset), and spurs consumption. On the dark side of the moon, there is a corresponding decrease in consumption, and thus production, and thus employment.

We seem to have lost sight of these principles, at times when monetary growth roughly offset productivity gains, and CPI inflation seemed manageable.

That all changed from 2002-2008. It was Republican Fed leadership which ushered in the crash, but not conservative principles. Conservative monetary principles were last espoused by William McKinley in 1900.

If you ever visit the Taft home in Cincinnati, you can see positive evidence of this decline -- vis-a-vis the campaign vs. Bryan in 1908. Both men favored currency devaluation, as a response to the crash of 1907.

That was the birth of our current, recurring trouble.