I'm going to make a prediction about the future, like in 10 years of Barack Obama. Homeboy is going to be fat, stinking rich and chilling with Bono. Barack Obama is going to be a painful, awful reminder to the professional class of whiners, exactly how power moves and shakes. He will be as large as Bill Clinton. Do you know why? Because he's crafty.
I don't think I'm ever going to be able to hear that Beastie Boys song again, and not think of Barack Obama. Dude has an ego on him worthy of the Sphinx at Cheops. And it is from that perspective, that I take a latent quantum of solace from him from a black man perspective. I like him in the same way I once liked Ed Lover and Dre - absurd, ridiculous, confident and rollin'. I wish I loved him like IceT, but he's a bit too much like Ice Cube. Anyway, if you don't get the metaphors, here's my point from a black existential point of view.
There used to be, well there is for my generation and cohort, a term called 'The Bogard', and it works rather like the metaphor of Chris Rock pretending to know kung fu. You know it's bloody unlikely, but if he's bold enough to say he does, maybe you don't throw the first punch. It's loud screamy talk that works. It's the Cheney Bus. And just like Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours in the honky tonk bar, sometimes you have to just bogard your way through whatever life throws you. OK for you younger folks, just think in Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. When the black guy gets away with it, you cheer. Barack Obama got away with it, big time. He won the lottery and at a certain level, he made it work. Is he actually presidential? No. Of course not. But there are certain aspects of his genuine personality that would inevitably work just perfect given the opportunity. And, he has sat in the big chair for about 4 years. That grey doesn't come from the stylist alone, and there is a nation of millions that can't afford a complete wackjob in charge.
In other words, and to use yet another movie metaphor, if you're Brad Pitt and you're going to make 'Troy' it's in everybody's interest to make you look like you can actually leap 10 feet in the air and chuck a spear faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball. In other words, the people of America who work for the President are duty bound to give him their utmost, and when he gives the word, then the beast is unleashed. You might question his judgment from time to time, but you've got to admit that his crafty ways work under particular circumstances.
So how do you make noise about diplomacy and kick Iran's ass anyway? You get crafty, and Barack Obama gets my highest props for doing just that. Now that it's out there that Stuxnet was America's doing, (and I really ought to check out the blather at Schneier). I have to wave the flag in the air like I just don't care. The Islamic Bomb is the world's number one problem.
Now it must also be said that the consequences of this brave attempt to pursue war by crafty means will eventually backfire - even if we want the Oliver Norths of the world to carry on the American purpose. And it is from that perspective that I stand with Bush's geopolitics of blatant Army action, without giving a rats about what other countries think. The covert is always going on, and so what - but I find it difficult to believe that when there are 20 Seal Teams, that they are all as good as when there were 'six'. Sometimes you need an armored battalion or two.
But I don't want to give any impression that I'm hedging what is without question the single most impressive thing I think our President has sanctioned in his term of office. The hunt for Bin Laden was old policy... Yay Olympic Games.
Recent Comments