When our daughter was 17 we bought her a trip to Israel with a youth group. And as her departure date neared she confided in us she was nervous that her peers would think she wasn’t cool.
“There are going to be all these kids from really cool places like New York City and Los Angeles. And then there is me from dorky tiny West Wendover?,” she said. “Everyone will think I am a hick. Maybe I can make up some place cooler to be from?”
“Don’t worry,” we replied. “First we think you are pretty cool and second you are probably the only varsity cheer leader in the group.”
“Oh that is so lame and I am not going to tell anyone I am a cheer leader,” she wailed. “That is so uncool its pathetic, a cheer leader from Hicksville, USA. Why can’t we be from some place exotic?”
“Sweet heart believe me where you are going Hicksville, USA is exotic,” we said. “Kids from Manhattan and Hollywood are a dime a dozen in Israel. But no one is from Wendover let alone a cheer leader. Besides lying is really hard work. Being yourself is easier even if it isn’t cool.”
It is apparent from Barack Obama little bio on his publisher’s page that he never had that conversation with anyone or it never sunk in.
Yes we know everyone is ready to fall on their own sword claiming that is was their fault that our current president was described as being ‘“born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’
Anyone in the publishing business knows that these pieces of fluff are mostly written by the author themselves and if not authored by the author then fact checked with them. The number one reason why they are written at all is to make the author sound interesting that is “cool”. And face it being ‘“born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’ is pretty damned cool. It would also disqualify him from serving as president but still we might think about shelling out $20 for a book written by someone ‘born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’
By the way this “fact checking error” was not a one off oops, his ‘“born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.’ remained until 2007.
While we are still leaning toward the fact that he was born in Hawaii, his author bio does indicate a far more serious problem. Our president was willing to lie to sell a book or at least willing to lie to be cool.
For a 17 year old girl thinking about making up a cooler place to be from to impress people is forgivable. Obama was 30 when the African birth was first claimed and 46 when it was corrected.
By that time he should have been comfortable in his own skin not to have to invent an African birth.
On the other hand the relentless pursuit of being cool is a pretty fair way to describe the last three years of the Obama administration.
Sure this country is in a mess but damn he looked so cool in getting us there we hardly noticed.
The only problem is that now at 50 it is harder and harder to be cool.
We know, we gave up at 35.
Seeing him now speaking in front of half empty arenas is kind of sad.
Like the aging hipster in the club Obama is almost pathetic, Kenyan birth or no Kenyan birth.
As for our daughter, it turned out we were right for once in our lives.
She was the super cool kid from the exotic place in the Nevada Outback.
She even took her cheerleader uniform with her when she went to college in Jerusalem because no one at school ever saw one except in the movies.
Now that is pretty damned cool.