Lorne Michaels isn't sweating any of the racial controversy for having Fred Armisen play Barack Obama.

Armisen, of Venezuelan and Japanese descent, sat with a Hillary Clinton-playing Amy Poehler during their Saturday Night Live debate skit, and will reprise his role of Barack Obama this week. It's sure to upset some, like the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan who rhetorically asked, "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?"

(For what it's worth, Obama's father is Kenyan, so by that logic, shouldn't he be played by an African?)

Nobody had a problem, Howie Kurtz notes, when Darrell Hammond played the Rev. Jesse Jackson, or even when Armisen played Prince.

The issue comes down to minstrelsy: Is Armisen's impersonation of a black man rooted in the deplorable American tradition of white (and black) actors dressing up as exaggerated blacks? SNL's makeup crew looks to have powdered his skin a different color. Is that blackface, or just a necessary impersonation technique?

Or why not sweep the whole issue under the carpet with a full-proof decision?

Bring back the biracial Maya Rudolph, who, if she can pull off Donatella Versace, can certainly pull of playing a man.