Cool Cat Turns Catty

18 April 2008

–by Mike Murray

Barack Obama prides himself on his demeanor. He strives to project a smooth public image, one that is part Will Smith, part Frank Sinatra. With one graceful hand ensconced in his tailored suit-pants pocket and the other caressing a cigarette, he looks the part of Sinatra – the young, skinny Sinatra. Not so much virile as “metrosexual.” But definitely cool. Rat Pack cool. Were he born earlier, Barack might have cruised Vegas alongside Frankie and his pals: Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

But just as Obama has lately snuffed out his ciggy-butt “coals” (not acceptable in today’s health-conscious world), so too has he extinguished much of his mojo. He’s looking less and less like a “cool cat” these days, more and more like a catty kid.

Because when his political opponents reminded voters of Obama’s unsavory associations with race-baiters, anti-Semites, and America bashers – and of his unflattering characterizations of small-town folk – Barack went all “junior high.” His stump rhetoric descended from platitudinous “yes we can” mantra to “nya nya nya nya nya nya” playground put-down.

Obama began making snide jokes about other candidates. He regressed into a kind of middle-school mindset, in the process turning his rallies into snarky trash-talking events. (Were he of Frankie, Sammy, and Deano’s generation, he’d no doubt be accusing Clinton’s and McCain’s mothers of wearing “army boots.”)

So much for the new style of politics that Obama was supposedly ushering in. So much for “never let ‘em see you sweat” cool. Rather than floating above mundane politicians, Barack these days just seems aloof – and snotty.

And that’s really the point. In his insult (and make no mistake, that’s what it was) of small-town, Midwestern people who own guns, who worship God, and – he claims – have nothing but “antipathy” for immigrants and those who are “different,” Obama revealed plenty. It is clear that he believes that people who don’t support his candidacy are largely hicks from the sticks. Bigoted, bible-thumpin’, gun-totin’ hicks from the sticks.

Keep in mind that his offensive comments came in response to the question: Why aren’t you doing better in Pennsylvania? His answer to the San Francisco Chablis sippers spoke volumes. Obama indicated that “bitterness” motivates the “angry” denizens of rural America. They “end up” (his characterization during the latest debate) worshiping at the altar of God, or Allah, or Buddha, or Shiva – rather than at the feet of Obama, one presumes.

Barack is lately “showing himself,” in the vernacular of country folk. It is plain to see: Obama has a very high opinion of himself, and a somewhat lower one of the rest of us. He believes that a great many people are uptight and resentful, somewhat racist, and overly susceptible to evil radio talk-show hosts and nasty conservatives. What happened to all the high-minded rhetoric? What happened to Obama’s contention that “the enemy isn’t the other party; it’s cynicism?”

After Barack stepped into yet another pile of doo-doo (with his outrageous comments about small-town Americans) he wasted little time descending into the political mud. Because when Hillary Clinton called him on his callous words, Obama responded by accusing her of a very partisan sin: “acting like a Republican.” Horrors.

Obama expected, he said, to be “unfairly attacked” by John McCain and his party consorts. But to be criticized in similar fashion by a fellow Democrat! That was just beyond the pale. Goodbye bi-partisan moderate. Goodbye new-style politician.

But it gets worse. Obama is now trying to sell the notion that he can’t possibly be a snob or an “elitist” because, you know, he didn’t grow up rich. He reminds us that he was raised (for a time) by a single-parent and that he and his mother (briefly) received food stamps.

Nice try, Barack. But being raised by one parent hardly qualifies as being disadvantaged. Lots of folks – from all manner of economic strata – have lost parents to separation and divorce. Still others have lost parents to illness or accident. The discomfort of having only one parent in residence is not uncommon.

As for Obama’s revelation that he was once on food stamps: it offers evidence of a lack of affluence, nothing more. Many, many people (lots of them college students and those pursuing advanced degrees) sign up for that particular form of governmental assistance. Little stigma – and, very often, no long-term hardship – attends it.

Which leads to another point. Obama’s mother was college-educated and graduate-school trained. And through the period during which she raised Barack as a single parent, she had only one child to look after. Hardly the dirt-poor experience of legions of others.

Later on, Barack’s mother remarried. And by all accounts, her second husband had a highly successful, professional career. Long story short: While Obama did not grow up wealthy, neither was he reared in anything that resembled ghetto squalor. Far from it. He had highly educated parents. He attended superior schools. And during much of his youth, he lived in nice homes.

Moreover, things have been going extremely well for Obama for many years now. Barack graduated from two Ivy League institutions of higher learning: Columbia University and Harvard Law. Even before entering the U.S. Senate, he and his wife Michelle (herself an alumna of Princeton University and Harvard Law), were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in joint income.

Perhaps the fictional character “Hoke,” brought to life so wonderfully by Morgan Freeman in stage and screen presentations of Driving Miss Daisy, should remind the Obamas that they’re “doin’ alright now.” And that, really, they’ve had it better than most all along. Because any time they want to compare poverty stories, I – and millions of other people like me – welcome the opportunity.

As did so many others, I grew up far poorer than either Michelle or Barack Obama. My mother (who had nothing more than a high-school education) was widowed by the death of her alcoholic husband. She was left with 7 children, whose ages ranged from 3 to 13. I vividly remember standing with her in long welfare lines to receive World War II surplus foodstuffs: cans of powdered eggs, containers of fatty meat, boxes of dried milk. We lugged what we could carry home on the bus.

And here’s the kicker: I was always aware that other people had it much worse. I knew that life could be far more difficult. I was grateful that I at least had a roof over my head, food in my belly, and a parent who loved me and looked out for me. (My mother eventually remarried. She had two more children by her second husband – a man who, though not college-educated, is decent and dependable. He and my mother still make their home in the modest, inner-city Cleveland house that I grew up in.)

If I and millions of people like me don’t feel that we endured upbringings of extraordinary hardship, then there is no way that folks like the Obamas – who had it much easier – can legitimately play the “disadvantaged” card. Moreover, if the rest of us recognize that anyone can become an “elitist” – irrespective of childhood beginnings – then Barack should refrain from playing his silly shell game.

But he probably won’t. Instead, he will no doubt refuse to recognize that anyone – from any background – can become a snob. Old Money might trump New Money in snooty circles. But that doesn’t keep New Money from looking down its nose on No Money. Besides, the issue isn’t exclusively about the size of one’s bank account.

Many a college professor is thin of income yet fat with attitude. Elitism is primarily a state of mind, not of wallet. It leads those it infects to mistakenly believe that they know better than “the great unwashed.” It has little to do with dollars and cents – or sense of any kind. Obama need not be a billionaire (or to have grown up affluent) to be plagued by the odious condition.

Barack Obama began his presidential campaign so smoothly. He was the new kid in school, the cool kid, the one everyone (including juveniles in the media) wanted to hang out with. Of course, it’s easy to glide glibly along when all are feeding your ego, telling you how special you are.

Now that a few intrepid souls have begun peeling back the outer layers of the onion that is Barack Obama – in order to get past the myth and take an objective look at the man – things have radically changed. Obama has lately become haughty. Agitated. Bitter, even. The “cool cat” has turned catty. Meow.

Berea Pundit