It's come to my attention over several conversations with Obama supporters in trying to ferret out exactly what they like about him (since most have no idea what is actual policies are, they just know that he has them and bloggers say they're progressive, but that's a whole 'nother entry) is that he's "cool". I have no objective problems with "cool", though in it's application to Obama and subsequently being a reason to make him leader of America, I have a few bones to pick:
1. Why does the leader of America need to be cool? I understand that politics these days is often a popularity contest and not a debate of ideas with citizens best interests at heart, but this doesn't seem like an important quality for a president to have. I suppose that in being a b-rate movie star Reagan was cool (though by the election he was just old); by today's standards Jimmy Carter's solar power and peanut farming makes him cool to the Whole Foods set (full disclosure: I shop at Whole Foods sometimes. It's a five minute walk from my apartment); Clinton played the saxophone, which is cooler than, say, the flute, but less cool than drums or guitar. But I don't see how any of these things made them better presidents.
2. What's so cool about Obama? As far as I can tell, he's cool because he's black, which seems incredibly racist to me. Does America really assume that being black makes you somehow cooler by default than being white? Isn't that sort of like assuming Obama is good at basketball and likes corn bread? Is this something we're okay with?
3. What advantages will Obama gain by being cool, aside from winning the votes of American hipster kids who wear Che t-shirts and drink organic shade grown coffee? I doubt that leaders in the middle east will be as charmed by him as American seem to be, and that seems to be his main foreign policy strategy. Maybe when he has all those chats over tea with Iran with no pre-conditions they will see that because Obama is cool he doesn't deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth for being a godless westerner. Somehow I doubt that.
Being on the cover of Rolling Stone might be good for the youth vote, but I doubt it's good for our image abroad. I can just see world leaders laughing at silly Americans and their rock star president. God help us.
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You gotta look at the definition of cool:
5. not excited; calm; composed; under control: to remain cool in the face of disaster.
6. not hasty; deliberate: a cool and calculated action.
There's a couple from dictionary.com that I would associate with Obama. Running the country is a stressful job. If you can't maintain your cool when the heat turns up, you can't be a good President. Looking at Obama's character and the way he's carried himself this election, he's that kind of guy. He doesn't stutter when responding to questions and he speaks confidently. That kind of cool is imperative for a President. And if folks don't care about the politics, that cool is just enough to earn a vote.
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