What if the “dirt” on Barrack Obama had been true? What if, heaven(s) forbid, Obama had, in fact, received two years of education at an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was six years old? What if this education hadn’t been secular, like Mr. Obama has clarified?
Let’s stop and think for a minute about how funny this is. Picture a six-year-old Obama being moved profoundly by a madrassa education, and the impact being so great that, no matter his later education at Harvard Law School, if he becomes President of the United States of America, the country turns into Amerikistan.
I think of my own son and his learning between the ages of six and eight, i.e., first and second grade – he went to a private, Episcopal school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Gulp. My wretched decision to let my Hindu boy learn to use crayons, attend church and play softball with his buddies Zach and Taylor has damned his chances of one day running for Prime Minister of India.
Well, maybe not. Because, didn't Indians in the last general elections elect an Italian, Catholic woman as prime minister of this chiefly Hindu, patriarchal third world country? Didn't they crowd the streets in protest when she declined? And, the protests had nothing to do with the fact that the man she handed the post to was Sikh.
Granted, a madrassa’s teachings are probably more religious than that at an Episcopal school, or, for that matter, the kindergarten in Singapore where my son learned to speak a little Mandarin (goodness,what was I thinking?). But, seriously, wouldn’t you applaud and wish all power to any kindergarten/grade school and any education that can make our kids think and be inspired for life at age six? Sign me up!
So, even if the story had been true, what is it that right wing muckrakers and political analysts know about American voting publics that makes such news so deliciously worth putting out there? Here’s a brief list –
• That the last presidential election was a vote against gay marriage and abortion.
• That the news media will be in a feeding frenzy over any smear campaign at all, so, why not kick off the 2008 presidential campaign season with this shocking one?
• That Web sites and blogs are here to stay, grow and drive us insane. For one, they don’t need to identify their reporters, leave alone their sources! I don’t easily use exclamation points, not even in email, but I use it here in the way in which its use is intended – to exclaim. A man called Jeffrey T. Kuhner's has a Web site, Insight, which “reported” that Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign was planning an accusation against Obama for covering up his elementary school education. I have sometimes supported maintaining the anonymity of sources, but, if any of my journalism students tried to pull this kind of stunt on me, I’d laugh them out of the classroom. Who are these people? And why are we reading their “news” and not moving emails from them to our "trash"?
• That we’re reading their “news” because Fox News told us to. No comments; don’t quote me on that; I can’t tell you who I am because I don’t think I know that myself.
• That, once it’s out there, we, the readers/audiences of America, cannot tell for ourselves what is fake and what isn’t. So, CNN is compelled to legitimize this and follow this as a news story. It actually sends a reporter to Obama’s little school in Indonesia, brings back an interview with the school principal and video footage for us to see for ourselves.
• That, finally, we’re readying for another horse race presidential campaign – bring on the Web sites, the blogs, the denials, the drama.
By the time we go out to vote, we will be so saturated and dulled by our torrents of media consumption, so familiar with the compelling ugliness of our candidates, that we just might go and vote on the basis of what someone whispered to us that morning, or, worse, on the suggestion in that last email.
5 comments:
WHOA! ULTRA coolio.
WHOA. ULTRA coolio. But he probably DID learn to use a crayon.
Good point, well made. But while there is no doubt of the fact that there could be few things more irrelevant to the US presidential election than where Obama spent his kindergarten, the fact that he actually came out to clarify the secular credentials of his kindergarten is ironical beyond belief. An irony that most Americans just don't seem to get.
Yes. That really is ironical. And that's what the the spin machine around the presidential elections looks like. It's almost like we're waiting for every little slur so we can watch a little squirming, a little sloganeering, and a good time can be had by all.
Thank you, Tiffany. Your comments are thought-provoking, especially given the discussions around the "co-option" mechanism of the advertising and marketing industry. It does look like that's what is happening with Coca Cola co-opting the "let's talk about race" fad and using it to draw in the African American market a little closer.
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