The GOP Word of the Week, Boys (and Girls), is: “Dithering”

McCain’s thing was bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, and Cheney & Co. have profited quite nicely from endless war. The resentment and virulent racism of the Far Right toward the peace-seeking Barack Obama being in the White House adds to a very toxic environment for him to clean up. I hope he continues to take his time making the best and wisest decisions available.

Maybe he could be doing something they’d admire more….like mountain-biking.

There’s a real wingnut whom I track – former radical now ultraconservative Christian is the claim – and that’s the big issue now. Dithering while the president does ANYTHING outside of working. The Latin music celebration last week or the week before …… dithering while Sgt. So-and-So and PFC Who & Whom died. No mention that the war in Afghanistan has been going on now for, what?, 8 years? Or that President Obama has been president for 9-10 months. (Of course, that was nothing compared to the uproar about when one of their girls was sick with meningitis at age 3 or 4 months. Barack said 3, Michelle said 4 – thus, it was a sham since neither apparently knew the correct age of their child when “really sick.”
And Michelle with the hula hooping ….. oh lawd, lawd! What an outcry!
I can honestly tell you this much. They DID NOT say SH*T while Bush was dithering, lying, spying or dodging shoes. As for his mountain biking – come on! That’s promoting the health of the American people.

This photo alone is pretty fascinating, but in the context raised here, gets kind of complex.
Notice the gaze of the guy in the background, certainly focused on Obama, but fairly neutral in terms of why — worried? excited? He’s wearing an Army shirt, identifiable by the color even if you don’t look closely enough to read the text. His youth — especially compared to the man on the left trying futilely to block Obama’s shot — further heightens the impulse to look at him as a soldier. Obama’s characteristic “cool” and “above it all” is here in spades, of course.
But in the context of “dithering” on Afghanistan, the soldier-type man could be getting “left behind” and ignored by an Obama whose gaze isn’t on anyone — it’s literally on the basket, of course, but that’s totally unseen — and the man trying to block the shot could as easily be an adviser (or general) trying to get his attention, “bring him back to earth.”

There really is something of a paradox here and I don’t quite know how to address it, but it comes down to a matter of attitude. Consider the ancien regime (Bush II): the Veep shoots someone in the face while hunting and drunk … the administration doesn’t care, despite criticisms. The President insults world leaders by mispronouncing their name or locating their country on the wrong continents … the administration laughs it off and doesn’t worry about it. And so on. The new regime makes it share of mistakes, but every time it is attacked and criticized it takes it seriously (and even here at the Bag, we tend to interpret every possible representation in the worst possible way …) and in the process it almost makes such critiques seems serious and important. At issue, of course, is how we want our leader’s to behave. And to be honest, I prefer the current approach of the present administration (if the alternative is what what the ancien regime gave us) BUT the cost of such an approach is precisely what we see — an administration driven by a commitment to transparency, responsibility, and responsiveness that often comes across as if it is mistaken or in trouble. Part of me wants to say we should just stop worrying about it; another part says this is exactly how it should be … no one is perfect and the sooner we figure that out and recognize honesty, sincerity and a commitment to responsibility the better.

Obama has made it cool again for white guys to play basketball, with African American men visually dominating the sport in the last several decades. I find this whole “boys club” complaining very curious. White men and women can unapologetically connect in all white guys and all white gals circles without a peep. Just look at advertisements, films and television programs. The notion suggested by some that Obama has to set the example in each and every sphere of U.S. public life sets double standards as the last 43 presidencies were not held to the same standards of the times. There is a curious visual scrutiny being played out almost as if to continuously spark flames that are not there. I find this especially the case of white men. I have not followed Mark Leibovich but I wonder why he finds the practice of basketball shoots by Obama and team so markedly “boys club” or “frat club” behavior. How much does this have to do with perceptions of basketball that have for so long been associated with black men (or boys) playing “in the hood”. Basketball visually associated with “boys in the hood”, “black boys with hoop dreams” or hypermasculinized black men, and thus overdetermined–a black man playing basketball de facto masculinized its context. Even if Obama had played with the Rutgers women basketball team, infamously characterized as rough girls, the “nappy-headed hos” of Don Imus, their “non-feminine” behavior would have framed them within the “boys club.” Nope, we are not in a post-racial era by any means.