A Very Telling Little Sentence....

CNN showed a puff piece yesterday.. about Obama in Hawaii at a take out restaurant, and in it he goes on about nutrition, and how you eat something nutricious first, but save a little room, because there's this terrific ice cream place across the street. And then he frowned slightly, and told a member of the fawning press with him

'You don't have to write that down.'

Like a schoolteacher, you know? (as in, 'Hey, it isn't gonna be on the test!' you know???)

The rest mentioned how the island was without electricity for eleven hours, and the Obamas were the first to be back on-line after. Now that is sort of bitchy. I hate to imagine what horror scenarios were going through the collective heads of the Sneakret Service during the black-out, I really do...

But that little sentence has stuck in my head the last day or so. The esteemed Duncan Black who has the blog Eschaton, has often gone ON about the phenomenon he calls 'journamalism'. Decrying the folks who are stenographers, and call themselves journalists, and swallow the cool-aid. Because they only survive if they are in with whoever is in power. Slavering Scribes of the Village, I call them.... Stenographers are not journalists, but the journamalists never figured that out.

So, that little sentence was a toss-off, to be sure, but am getting the feeling that Obama can be mighty sarcastic in a very oblique way, and doesn't suffer fools gladly. His reaction to the puppy questions already have shown that. Snark with style.

Maybe, just maybe, real journalists might get pushed to the fore in the coming years. That would be nice.... Frank Rich got something nearly right last week, but then he blew it totally in his final paragraphs. But for the most part it was illuminating... link here

(The last part had me hot under the collar and steam coming out of my ears...)

So now I am confused, Preciousses... What role are his advisors really playing here? Am not trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, no. But if you get to see the President elect unscripted, it is very interesting....

And that was a telling little sentence, for sure. Saw it twice on the tee-vee, and it reverbrated. Will the REAL Barack Obama now please stand up, as the old show used to say?

Update: Annti was kind enough to send me the following information about the power shortage I had not seen, so am adding it to this post.

"Actually, the electric company SENT A COMMERCIAL GENERATOR out to their rented vacation home AS SOON AS THEY LOST POWER, and Barry SENT IT BACK. He didn't want the special treatment, and knew that one night without power would never hurt them. He thanked the power company, said no thank you, and said that they were going to bed early. Look it up in the London Daily Mail, that's where I saw it, after the paparazzi invaded his very-private memorial service for his grandmother, since he'd missed the funeral. His sister and he were sprinkling her ashes into the ocean and the zoom lenses intruded, nonetheless. The power outage is covered much better, with more accurate detail about the time-line and his refusal of special treatment when his neighbors went without. The Secret Service did go and purchase two residential generators, but they never even cranked 'em up, because he didn't want to waste the gasoline and create the pollution. I'm no Barry-worshipper, but he showed a lot of gumption to not freak out over a little black-out, when he still remembers Gustav, Rita and Katrina. Please add this and the London Daily Mail to the post."