Towards the end of a press conference last month, ABC News reporter Ann Compton asked Barack Obama a question simultaneously obvious and oblique. "Yours is a rather historic presidency," she said. "And I'm just wondering whether in any of the policy debates that you've had within the White House the issue of race has come up, or whether it has in the way you feel you've been perceived by other leaders or by the American people? Or has the last 64 days been a relatively colourblind time?"