Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Obama connects


You know, I don't care -- I like this guy. Wherever he is -- whether buying hamburgers at Five Guy's or perusing the Great Pyramids or talking trash along side the Wizard's sideline -- he's a cool, ordinary guy who definitely knows how to connect with ordinary people and doesn't need handlers and trainers to make himself real. He is already real, in a way that Johnson or Nixon or Ford or Carter or Reagan or Bush I or Clinton or Bush II never were. They were always just secluded politicians who did not, and could not, connect. Obama connects. You have the feeling that even if he weren't president tomorrow, he'd still be basically the same guy. Did you see the NBC clip of his slipping out of his limo and into Five Guys to buy a burger? On the way in he patted a few people on the shoulder, just as calmly and friendly as could be, and waved hi to the rest, no less than he was a star point guard.

Before last year none of us would have ever guessed a black man would be POTUS. And yet he has settled into the position as simply as vodka over ice, as if history did not even exist. This is just beyond cool.

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