President McDreamy

Judith Warner has a very amusing and insightful blog entry on her NYT Blog about people's passionate feelings about the new President. In particular, she talks about how many people feel they have so much in common with him that it's just possible to imagine having him and Michelle over for dinner and scrabble...

I understood perfectly where these cozy dreams of easy familiarity came from. It was that sense so many people share of having a very immediate connection to Barack Obama, whether they’re black or biracial, or children of single parents or self-made strivers; or they’re lawyers or community organizers or Ivy League graduates or smokers or basketball players or Blackberry users or parents or married or Democrats. A lot of people share the fantasy that having the Obamas over for “dinner and a game of Scrabble,” as one daydreamer put it to me, is something that really could just about happen. ....

Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There’s a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas. Because they went to school with them. Because they used to dream like them. Because, with one or two “different turns,” they maybe could have been them. ....

“Will Michelle stay down to earth? She could prove it by joining our book club,” wrote a Sidwell mom.

This is, perhaps, the price of faux-familiarity. If I were Barack Obama (or Michelle, for that matter), I’d be a little scared. After all, when people are wearing their egos on their sleeves, it’s so easy to bruise their feelings. What will happen if fantasy turns to contempt? (source)

Did I mention that I sent a letter of congrats to President Obama? I suspect I may receive a canned reply in a few months if I'm lucky. I actually knew a girl who interned in the White House in the Bill Clinton era. She worked in the mail room and described how many hundreds and thousands of letters come to the President daily. Still, it's the gesture that counts.

Speaking of politics and politicians, all the clergy in the Diocese were asked to meet with their local government reps (City Council, MPP, etc.) to advocate for social justice issues (homelessness, HIV/AIDS, etc.). I'm embarrassed to actually do this, yet. It's one of those side projects that tend to get pushed aside in favour of more pressing concerns...

-t