A Cool, Confident Couple

The other day a friend of mine sent me a threatening letter promising that if I didn't immediately send all my money to the Obama campaign, I would burn in hell forever, with the ghost of Hillary Clinton eternally sticking a pitchfork in my ass.

So, for the very first time in my life ever, I sent in ten bucks to a political campaign. Which I could ill afford, BTW.

The next day, as I reconsidered my rash decision, I came upon this photo on BagNews of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle doing the hand-bump. Take a good look at it:




Not since Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy have I seen such a damn good looking couple on the political scene, celebrating in public - confident, bonded, relaxed yet full of a coiled-steel-spring energy. They aren't doing the chest-bump, as our idiot-child president performed at the recent Air Force Academy graduation ceremony, or the high five like a pair of knuckleheads, nor did they whoop and holler like a couple of pickaninnys in a watermelon patch who just stole the fat one from The Man.

Au contraire, what I see are two very, very smart people, relaxed in public with each other, and, like islands in the stream, coolly allowing the storm around them to part around their mutual being. As a thought exercise, compare & contrast the photo above with any photo of Laura Bush's over-the-top imitations of Mamseille Antoinette or the battling, manipulative Vivien Leigh cynically imploring Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind for one more chance.

Barack's connections with big hedge funds troubles me no end, yet as I have watched his appearances over the last year, listened to him speak, and observed him when he was addressing a genormous record crowd in a waterside park in Oregon, I sense a depth in him of consideration and a patience that is almost preternatural, so far from Bush's arrogance and "bring 'em on" pusillanimous that the two men might be from different planets.

I have no major expectations from an Obama presidency; Bush and Cheney have managed to so screw up the Republic that, if it's not dead already, it's resuscitation is going to take a generation (at least) to revive, but with Obama, I think we might at last be seeing a real light at the end of a truly hideously dark tunnel.



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