Voters also don’t seem to mind Hillary, with her $109 million bank account, selling herself as the champion of the little people. The blue-collar queen shared her thoughts about the “outrageous” Rev. Wright with the blue-collar king, Bill O’Reilly, last week. In reality, as first lady, Hillary was renowned for her upstairs-downstairs tussles in the White House, and her high-handed treatment of the little people in the travel office, on the switchboard and on the residence staff.
One of the few times I've seen Barack Obama on television, he was speaking to a huge crowd of people in a auditorium and they didn't want to let him go. Finally he had to leave the stage. He was on a schedule.
The cameras stayed on him. The slow progress from podium to exit was marked by the usual hand-shaking: Obama with local pols who been with him on stage, Obama with people from the audience reaching out to touch him as he went down the steps, and finally Obama stopping deliberately and shaking the hands of all the local, uniformed security guys who stood along the fringes of this huge auditorium. Must have driven his staff nuts. But for those of us watching him on TV for the first time it was a revelation.
Maureen Dowd takes a look at Barack's perceived elitism, whether he sips or chugs a beer. She acknowledges that he isn't really elitist. In contrast to his '08 opponent, he isn't considered to be a selfish bitch by his security team. Yeah, but he's that suspect rarity -- a brownish guy from Kansas, for god's sake, went to Hahvahd Law! And Dowd can't seem to let it go.
The reports were legend about the Clintons’ problems with the Secret Service, and I once saw Bill dress down an agent in a humiliating way over a couple of autograph seekers who got past a rope line in Orange County, Calif.
Obama, on the other hand, may seem esoteric, and sometimes looks haughty or put-upon when he should merely offer that ensorcelling smile. But he is very well liked by his Secret Service agents, and shoots hoops with them. And I watched him take the time one night after a long day of campaigning to stand and take individual pictures with a squadron of Dallas motorcycle police officers on the tarmac.
It must be hard for Obama, having applied all his energy over the years to rising above the rough spots in his background, making whites comfortable with him, striving to become the sophisticated, silky political star who looks supremely comfortable in a tux. Now he must go into reverse and stoop to conquer with cornball photo ops. ...It’s hard not to be who you are, but it’s doubly hard to be who you’ve strived not to be. Obama not only has to figure out how to unwind with a Bud. He has to rewind his life.
Huh? An American kid from Kansas actually gets to be a Constitutional lawyer and presidential candidate and he's not just from Out There, he's half African-American? That's at variance with dreams and reality in America? Who the hell have we become?
Where I live (south of Kansas), kids (including those with black faces, or those with Mexican names and heritage) go to college, go to ivy law schools, go to Washington, become leaders, become military heroes, even become George W. Bush. Some of them remain after all their achievements quietly competent, shy, and self-effacing -- not unlike Obama. Those are the good guys. The bad ones tend to become imperious, angry, manipulative, elitist, and divisive.
Maybe all the reverse snobbism Dowd has tapped into has something to do with a big change in America. Since the '60's, people in positions of political leadership have changed the language they use to refer to constituents -- to the people who elected them. "Th'murrican people" have become "them" rather than "us." Anyone else noticed that? Leaders setting themselves apart from those who elected them?
One of the reasons for Obama's popularity is that he knows, and tells us, where the responsibility for repairing America lies. Both Clinton and Obama show talent for leadership, but Clinton's an "I" candidate; Obama's a "we" candidate. He knows he's one of us and he knows that we're all responsible. Above all, he knows we all have to be a part of the needed changes.
No more imperial president, please. No more reverse snobbery. No more us and them. No more slick imitations of "the common man." No more upstairs downstairs. No more red versus blue. No more false assumptions-- whether about Boston or "the heartland." No more "victims" of George W. Bush or globalization or terrorism or environmental degradation. They weren't thrust on us by others. We all helped to created those horrors.
Oh yeah, and no more "black" or "white."
The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules,” the former president said. “In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it.
The above quote from Bill Clinton is despicable. It's divise and entirely political since there is no one in America that believes "they should play by a different set of rules" more than Bill Clinton believes it. He is the one who thinks rules are for others.
I can't believe I used to like this guy. The Clinton's "elitist" attack on Obama is Republican to its core.
Posted by: Pug | May 04, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Uh ... "ensorcelling"??? Isn't that word reserved for elitists?
Posted by: Ron G | May 05, 2008 at 01:47 AM