Celebrity President? Over My Dumb Body.

Ever since Barack Obama announced his bid for president, I’ve been paying pretty close attention to our candidates and what they mean to me and my country. I, like most, became enamored with Obama’s speeches and message of hope, because, why not? Sounds plausible. Hope didn’t sound that expensive the way he described it, and I didn’t see where a little hope might change my daily routine too drastically. I tried to give John McCain the same amount of attention, and really learn what he’s all about, but I have to admit that I don’t think I’m smart enough or politically savvy enough to understand what it is he plans to do. Even when his confusing and inconsistent views of a world that sounded completely unlike the one I read about and lived in started to make a little sense to me, his impatience and condescension reminded me that I have no business trying to understand a mind like his. I wish I could, but I went to public schools, and I need things explained to me with a little more detail and, well, in grammatically correct English if possible. So, by default and as a result of my own limitations, I became an Obama supporter. I voted for him in the primaries, and planned to vote for him in the general election as well. I really appreciated the efforts John McCain made to inform my decision, and I wanted to believe him when he slipped on his $500 shoes and boarded his wife’s private jet to travel the country and remind me that Barack Obama is an elitist. But again, my sub-par education must be failing me, because it’s obvious that the meaning I had always assigned to “elitist” is completely wrong. Shucks. I wish I was smart enough to understand all of that stuff.

But then McCain did something that shook me out of my silly, overly-positive admiration for my candidate by doing what any great leader of a nation of simple folks would do to save me. He dumbed it down. I hadn’t even realized how close I was to casting a vote for my own destruction until I saw this…



Barack Obama is the BIGGEST CELEBRITY IN THE WORLD?

What the Sam Hill? When in tarnation did this happen? I had seen the crowds, and the constant attention, but I guess I read it differently than I would my favorite gossip mag. I thought he was running for political office, something that I don’t care about because it doesn’t really affect my life at all, but I NEVER thought he would be trying to take the place of my favorite celebrities! And right there, in the first few seconds of the ad, I realized how bad I had let it get. Beautiful photographs of two of the most regal celebrities in the world, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, reminded me of how seriously my priorities had been damaged. What frightens me most now as I remember the first time I watched this illuminating ad, is that in one second, in one split unforgiveable second, with the sounds of Obama’s voice ringing in my ears, I realized that I didn’t know Britney and Paris anymore. I had almost…I shake as I type this…forgotten about them. In the last year I have spent so much time following Obama’s speeches and interviews and frivolous talk about taxes and increasing my family’s income and ending some war or something, that I had completely neglected my fascination with the real heroes of this country, our celebrities.

In a panic, I began to quiz myself.

“Is Paris in rehab now, or out?” I didn’t know.

“Are Britney’s kids old enough yet to ride around on the hood of car the way she likes them to?” I had nothing.

“Are they even her kids anymore or are they with Kevin?”

Oh my God! Where is KFed!

I looked around for a People, or an US, anything to get my bearings and convince myself that I hadn’t completely lost touch with what is truly important, but all I could find was an OK from June. Of 2007! Lindsay Lohan probably has a half a dozen drunken sex tapes that I don’t know about, and I’m sitting here in my living room watching an African-American Jr. Senator from some Midwestern state speak to 200,000 people in Berlin. Wherever that is.

How did he do it? How did he successfully pull off this celebri-coup? I spent the better part of last night googling phrases like, “Obama Rehab Escape”, “Obama Lip Sync Scandal Fat Dancing” and “Upskirt Obama No Underwear” and I found nothing that could explain how he has earned this title. Biggest Celebrity in the World, how dare he even try. So what is Kirstie Allie then?

McCain has been right all along, and I wasn’t smart enough to see it. Obama’s rise to the top of our nation’s most sacred form of worship is the most diabolical form of terrorism. There is no better way to completely destroy our American way of life from within than to distract us from what makes us who we are, and what makes us better than everyone else, by making us turn away from Entertainment Tonight and pay attention to politics.

And to think it almost worked. I feel so dumb.

Hot Mic = Nutty Exchange

So Rev. Jesse Jackson made a disparaging and crude remark ("disparaging" and "crude" are the accepted media terms for this story, so I will use them too!) about Barack Obama. If you haven't seen it, check it out here. You know what's great about the rare opportunity to hear someone speak when they don't think they are on TV? The honesty and humanness of their statements. As an Obama supporter, I don't have any problem with what Jackson said, and from the sounds of it, neither does Obama. Through his spokesman Bill Burton, Barack defended his initial comments about parenting in the black community that Jackson was referring to, and then Burton added:

"He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Reverend Jackson's apology,"

Done and done. Riiiight...

But Barack must know what it's like dealing with someone like Jackson, and the good Reverend sounded pretty comfortable using the phrase about cutting his nuts off. (You know who didn't look very comfortable? That guy sitting next to him. I'll bet people get nervous when a pissed off Jesse Jackson leans in to tell you a secret.) He probably uses language like that all of the time. So what? Most of us do when we aren't being interviewed on TV, where you are expected to use TV-interview friendly language and non-offensive, meaningless rhetoric to address complex issues in short, predetermined time segments. The media sets up these rules and then loves to act so surprised when something meant to be off-mic is heard, and Gee-whiz! People with strong opinions sound so much different in real life! That wasn't on the teleprompter at all!

Jesse Jackson is pretty irrelevant in this campaign, and some will suggest that's the source of his irritation with Obama. But that is just one of the things that will be suggested over the next couple of days to make this a bigger story than the simple fact that a grown man with strong opinions about his community disagrees with another grown man with strong opinions about his community. When did that kind of honest debate become a bad thing in this country, so that it must only be addressed after the mics are "turned off"?

But everyone knows the game, and once again the heart of this argument, which is really about family and responsibility, will become about something sinsister and provacative, and certainly hurtful when necessary. I can't wait to see how Fox turns this comment into some kind of castration ritual that fellow terrorists threaten each other with!

But again, we know the drill. Jackson apologizes publicly, uses all the key words in doing so, and those who need to distance themselves from him will publicly denounce him, as is evident below in a comment from one of Jackson's first repudiators:

I'm deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson's reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama. His divisive and demeaning comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee -- and I believe the next president of the United States -- contradict his inspiring and courageous career.

Did that statement come from the Obama campaign? Nope, that one came from Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

His own son.

Barack Obama doesn't have to say anything about this. Jesse Sr. has real problems now. When you attack someone who is calling for better parenting from fathers, and suddenly you become "Reverend Jackson" to the kid who used to call you "Dad", you better watch your own nuts.