Backhanded Compliment

Kathleen Parker, a columnist at the Washington Post, has a new theory:

If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.

Ouch. She claims to be saying it "in the nicest possible way." But is there a nice way to say something like this?

Maybe she's using that technique where someone asks: are you a real man or not? You know, to dare the guy into doing something bold.

If so, I think it's a futile gesture on her part. His leadership style is what it is. I don't think he can change it.

Or maybe she finds it professionally advantageous
to increase her page views by writing something outrageous.