"All the cart does is give him a chance. That's part of who we are as Americans."

Interesting perspective from Michael Bamberger on why no one seems to care these days whether Casey Martin takes a cart or not: society has changed.

There must still be plenty of people who think it's an affront to the sanctity of the game to have one player play by different rules. But many fewer than there were in the old century.

What changed? Casey Martin didn't change. He's still a golfer who can make the shots, but not the walk, that tournament golf requires. So what actually changed?

We changed.

We've become more tolerant (or so I'd like to think). The Sept. 11 attacks made us reassess the important from the trivial.

We elected a black president for the first time, and today when people are critical of Obama's performance, it has little to do with the color of his skin and more to do with the high price of gasoline.

Nobody cares if the secretary of state is a woman or a man, unless you have the view that women are more likely to keep us out of war.