Toni Morrison on whether she regrets calling Bill Clinton the first black president:

People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.

IN OTHER ENDORSEMENT NEWS Toni Morrison, who, inadvertently I hope, launched what would become the long-lasting "Bill Clinton is the first black president" ridiculousness, has thrown her hat into the endorsement ring by sending a rather poetic letter of support to Obama's camp.
"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates," Morrison wrote. "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

"Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace — that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom," Morrison wrote.

It is bad that I not only do I hope and pray to look like Iman when I'm 52 years old, but I actually wish I looked like her now? It's appropriate that the most glamorous 50-something in the world attended Glamour's Women of the Year awards last night. Check out some more of the honorees and guests after the jump.

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