In the ongoing, often contentious, argument about whether Barack Obama deserves the support of black voters -- who have turned out for him in sometimes overwhelming numbers during this grueling primary season -- there are a few things I wish we could simply stipulate so that they don’t cloud what might otherwise be a reasonable debate.

One: He is not a Muslim. There is only one adherent of Islam in the parlors of elected federal government and, even then, so what? Muslim does not equal terrorist or jihadist, nor does having an exotic name -- Barack Hussein Obama. So, let us agree that Obama is not Muslim and that we would be wrong to stereotype him if he were.

Two: Obama is not a stalking horse for the Republican party, primped and paid to drain votes away from Hillary Clinton so that John McCain can saunter into the White House. Of all the conspiracy theories, this is perhaps the most nonsensical. It would require Obama to make a mockery of everything he did before he burst onto the national scene -- the law school achievements, the community organizing work, marrying Michelle, the state senate service in Illinois -- in order to create a history of plausibility as a serious public servant and proud black man so that, some day in the distance, he could distract allegiances, allowing someone who has lived pretty much the opposite life to win.

Forget that Obama has no record or reputation for such chicanery, who in the world has that kind of patience? Besides, that conspiracy theory presumes that an honest election would be between Clinton and McCain, and that Obama v. McCain is illegitimate -- an insult on its face. And, pray tell, what would be in it for him? Money? Let’s not reduce this man to a chili pimp, if you please. Maybe power? And what would that power prize be if not the presidency? U.S. senator from Illinois?

Third: Obama does not hate America. If he does, he has a most peculiar way of showing it, having so fervently adhered to Uncle Sam’s playbook on how to be successful and how to make it here. He has failed to come up with the language, the countenance or the policy that betray a yearning to undo the country. For all of his talk of change, it must not be forgotten that the change would be within the context of one overarching constant: The USA survives.

Finally: Supporting Barack Obama is not a mere fad, some proposition in vogue for the moment that all of the “in” people are doing, like sporting an IPod, “journaling” before bed and dining on bok choy.

True, there are some pop culture signatures to his candidacy, but then, welcome to the century where folks demand gratification -- and credit -- from every choice they make. So Obama gives them a rush with all that elegant, soaring rhetoric. That doesn’t make it empty.

Although there are legitimate questions about Obama’s readiness and fitness for the world’s single most powerful office, for the most part, they are matters of policy and position, not character or personality. 

I don’t know him personally and probably never will. Most of us won’t. Ultimately, we have to go on what we can see and what appears to be the case. And there is no indication whatsoever that Barack Obama is anything worse than a political prodigy, who showed up earlier than we have come to expect, but who wants the top job in order to scratch some itch to serve or to boost his self-esteem or both.

But he is clearly neither the boogey man nor the bootlick that, for whatever reason, some folks ache for him to be.