I like Barack Obama. Not because I’m convinced he’s the best statesman up to bat, but because Obama is about as far from Bush (Mr. 19% approval, an ARG poll said yesterday!) as a person can be: intellectual, capable, eloquent. It’s been far too long since any presidential politician possessed those qualities. Oh, and I think he’s the only candidate who’ll bring an end to all of this empire-building and destruction of democracy. That’s kind of important.
But what’s really bugging me is the emergence of a new line of attack from Mr. Obama’s detractors. They’ve already found ways to raise the specter of his blackness while saying they aren’t–witness this reprehensible piece saying black/white marriage in 1960 equals half-Communist, half-Jew–but the new line of attack comes from the darkest, ugliest corner of the American psyche. You see, the real problem with Barack Obama isn’t that he’s young/Communist/Jewish/black, no sir, he is -gasp- a poet.
Now that you’ve regained your composure, I’ll point out that I have an MFA in poetry. I’ve long experienced the American attitude toward poetry and poets. In our fine country, poetry seems to be greeted as one of two things by those outside academe: 1) cute or 2) impossibly effete and terrifyingly intellectual. Those who are levelling this "charge" at Obama are aiming at the dumbest of the electorate and tapping into that sluggardly aspect of the American mainstream that is suspicious of anyone who dares to use their brain cells for anything more sophisticated than becoming an "educated consumer."
We’ve all seen how new memes get tested by the right, then bubble into the general consciousness. But this one isn’t just coming from the right. Hillary Clinton surrogate Tom Buffenbarger employed it in its ugliest form to-date in Ohio recently: “Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.”
I’d probably be a bit testy too if I’d gone through childhood with the handle "Buffenbarger," but this really makes me angry. Since when do Democrats employ all the moronic cliches of the right to attack each other, and Democratic voters?
Me, I’d rather have a poet for president. You know, someone who knows language can be employed for beauty and truth, not just manipulation. Someone who recognizes that rising above the quotidian isn’t somehow unAmerican. Someone who looks at the world through empathetic eyes. It might even lead to an increase in peace and prosperity. I don’t know if Obama is really a poet; I’m not even sure real poets can become politicians in this country. This isn’t, in fact, a piece of pure praise of Obama. I’m just already tired of seeing the once-proud role of poet denigrated by a bunch of small-minded political hacks who wouldn’t know beauty and truth if it nested in their dessicated-walnut brains. If Obama is our nominee, rest assured that by the end of the campaign, the term "poet" will have been turned into such a dirty word that those of us with actual poems to our names will probably have to expect deportation if the GOP stays in power. But after 8 years of Bush, it won’t be surprising. Poetic politics? If only we could be so lucky!
