Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is getting praise for his Sister Souljah moment — his comments on affirmative action:

On affirmative action, Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, said he thinks that someday when his two young daughters apply to college, they “should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged” and there is nothing wrong with that.

“I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and been brought up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed,” he added. “There are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling.”

Obama said that “if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.”

If Obama actually opposes race-based affirmative action outright, I’d consider it an act of political courage. Supporting racial preferences is a default Democratic position, and given the current state of American racial politics, it is a position that black Democratic candidates in particular are expected to take. To demonstrate that you don’t always take the default party position can be refreshing to people, especially when doing so runs the risk of getting you labeled as a traitor to your race.

But does Obama really oppose racial preferences? When he was running for Senate four years ago, Obama wrote a letter to Black Commentator addressing a number of topics, including affirmative action:

I favor affirmative action, but I’m still going after the votes of white union members who oppose affirmative action, because I think I can convince them that it’s Bush’s economic agenda, and not affirmative action, that is eroding their job security and stagnating their wages.

So, there you have it. Obama recently hinted that he opposed affirmative action, but four years ago, he he opposed it quite explicitly. Unless he just-as-explicitly says he has since changed his mind, I take the more definitively worded position (”I favor affirmative action”) to represent his actual beliefs.

Maybe Obama’s recent statement is just an example of his “going after white union members who oppose affirmative action.”

If he now speaks out against race-based affirmative action, he would be applauded by many people, including me. A viable black presidential candidate opposing affirmative action would be a milestone in American racial politics. Will it be Obama?