Dear President O: Sorry, But Talk Of Kicking A– Just Sounds L—
With All Due Respect, It Just Hurts You
Dear Mr. President,
I don’t blame you for being p—–. You were down there in the rain. You were down there before all these talking heads even knew what was going on. You were down there even before there was a Web cam.
I don’t blame you for being very very frustrated. People seem to expect that a President, like a king, can cure scrofula with the touch of a hand. I’m not sure what scrofula is, but you get the point—they seem to think that you have quasi-magical powers, and that any hesitation in the use of this magic is a sign that you just don’t care.
I absolutely believe that you are hopping mad at BP, just as you are hopping mad at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, CNBC, AP, and practically every single commercial organization out there with a name of three letters or less. But when your showing pique is actual news, when Brian Williams has to make a televised announcement telling us that your showing anger is what we are about to see (from a clip of an interview with Matt Lauer) then you have just got to accept that the voice of rage does not come readily to you.
Personally, I think that’s fine. No one ever disparages George Washington for keeping his temper. Washington himself, in the Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior In Company and Conversation, which he transcribed before the age of 16, set down Rule 45th, “in reproving Shew no Sign of Cholar but do it with all Sweetness and Mildness.”
I happen to be someone who shows Choler a fair amount. But, when I’m in a better mood, I generally understand that anger to be a sign of my immaturity—the ManicDDaily part of me. I get angry because I want the world and people in it to be different than they are. But the world is what it is; s— happens; people can be jerks; sometimes, my own anger (as warranted as it is!) just adds to the general jerkiness of it all. A few curt admonitions definitely have their place; still, it’s often more useful to focus on concrete steps than to rant at the nature of nature (human, mechanical, or divine.)
The point is that some people angry are cold, clear, analytical. (Often such people are mainly angry at themselves–for not predicting jerky people, jerky circumstances.)
I don’t know, Mr. President, if your anger takes you into those cold, clear waters (the kind we’d really like to protect), but I’m pretty sure it’s not the type of anger that rants about “kicking a–.” The words are dumb words, and they sound especially dumb coming from you. They don’t flow from your lips correctly; there’s a stutter, a disconnect, that comes across as forced and petulant.
So, let it go. Be yourself. Stop worrying about the anger bit; just keep worrying about the doing bit.
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Tags: BP, George Washington, manicddaily, Manicddaily pencil drawing, Obama angry at Gulf, Obama Kicking A, Obama with matt lauer, Obama's on Today Show, pencil drawing of Obama kicking A, President Obama's anger, Rules of Civility, usefulness of anger
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ManicDDaily 
June 8, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Love this post, Karin. You’ve always been a wonderful wordsmith, so that’s a given. The message in this one is something I also heartily applaud. If you don’t mind, I’d like to link to this post.
June 8, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Of course, thanks very much. I really love Obama, and I hate to see him dragged down by people being ridiculous on both sides of the spectrum.
June 9, 2010 at 2:27 am
I read virtually all my news, no TV, no radio. So if there was a stutter, a disconnect, yes, that nuance got by me.
But this: politics is all about rage. People mostly vote against. A politician who fails to channel the anger of those voters with whom he or she has natural sympathy will soon see opportunistic opponents, candidates who may not even share those voters’ perspective, moving in to collect the spoils.
One could have blinked and missed it, but this week the criminal trial over the Bhopal disaster finally ended after 25 years. Guilty verdicts. And wrist slaps…fines on the order of $2000 and short jail terms that may well never be served –and won’t even start till all appeals have been exhausted, who knows when. A disaster so large no one has even a nearly precise death toll.
Obama has two tasks in connection with the spill, the first popular but very nearly impossible, the second feasible but doubtlessly highly controversial: Obama must restore the Gulf and reform the business practices that unwisely imperiled so much that mattered to so many. The news from Bhopal suggests we should feel as pessimistic about the second matter as the first. (Yes, India is a different country, but this: the USA shielded Warren Anderson from facing even that half-hearted prosecution.)
So, however awkwardly, if Obama has used not the usual words in not the usual way, I’m one of millions of people waiting to hear that we’re not going to have business as usual, and I’ll take the gesture as a hopeful sign even if I’m not ready to get my hopes up yet.
June 9, 2010 at 7:34 am
It’s horrible about Bhopal. I’m not saying that Obama shouldn’t be angry–and I’m sure that he is–but it’s ridiculous to adopt a style that isn’t true to him. It just doesn’t ring true; and it doesn’t come across as outrage so much as irritation. I also worry people on the left side of the divide expect the near-impossible from Obama, given the circumstances and sentiments of the country at large.