Jay-Z and Itchy Fingers Can't Help Obama When Things Really Get Rough

It seems Barack Obama has a hard time keeping his hands and fingers at his side. Obama's did he or didn't he flip off of Hillary Clinton during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina a few days back touched off a mild titter on a few political blogs and got a few pundit tongues wagging on whether Obama was crude, and low class enough to actually use the disgusting and demeaning gesture toward Hillary.

Team Obama predictably said it was an innocent gesture to scratch an itch and no offense was intended even though he repeated the gesture twice at the same moment that he made a pointed anti-Hillary dig. Short of administering an on the spot polygraph test to candidate Obama we'll grudgingly take his word for his Raleigh itchy finger caper. But now there's yet another episode that deepens suspicion that BO has a serious itchy finger problem.

Midway through another speech Obama raises his ubiquitous fingers to his shoulder and brushes off the dirt. The brush off comes at the precise moment that he had just lambasted take your pick, Hillary, ABC's beleaguered debate moderators, Bill Clinton, or anyone else who has dared criticize him or to toss anything but the puffiest of puffball questions at him. There was no mistaking the juvenile gesture this time. The youngsters in the crowd, stuffed to the marrow with hip-hop moves and lyrics, instantly got it. They went wild.

For the old timers, here's what the gesture means and where it came from. Popular rapper Jay-Z in a rap lyric implored anyone who wants to diss an adversary to do the following, "If you feelin like a pimp ..go and brush your shoulders off.. get that dirt off your shoulder." This was the ultimate rapper's delight; a presidential candidate actually dumping a hip hop move onto the nation's political plate. The hip hoppers of the world were in ecstasy at Obama's informal endorsement of the rap lifestyle. Within minutes the videos popped up with Obama doing the finger-shoulder brush off spiced with hard driving Jay-Z lyrics and the heads of the Clintons and the much maligned Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos rolling off. There were no instant denials from Team Obama on this one. And there was absolutely no chance that CBS's moderator team of Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer will have a chance to do their best imitation of Charlie and George and ask him any pesky and embarrassing questions about his finger moves. Team Obama saw to that. They moved speedily to get the scheduled debate with Hillary April 27 at Raleigh's RBC Center cancelled. The rationale again take your pick is: A. a scheduling conflict B. Debate fatigue/overkill C. Ala Democratic Party officials, more debates create more party divisiveness.

But D. is my preference as to why the cancellation. Obama will get no more free pass, sponge ball questions. He will have to answer any and every question put to him no matter how trivial, irrelevant, and potentially damaging he screams that they are. While he may be right to take offense at them, the reality is that the rough and tumble, gut hitting stuff comes with the political turf. If Obama and his cheering section whine and grouse that their guy is being unfairly pounded, what will they say and do when the going gets really brutal in the fall general election. They can't hide behind the screech of "unfairness" when McCain gets down and dirty and the GOP hit squads get even more down and dirtier with their non-stop dirt digging ads, character assassination attacks, and out of context quotes. He won't have a Hillary firewall to deflect the heat. There will be no compliant media shielding him with safe and predictable puff pieces and marshmallow questions that allow him to give canned and formula answers to policy questions.

The crowds that gather to hear him won't always be filled with dreamy eyed, admirers that hang rapturously on his every utterance. He will not be able to fill in the blanks on the tough questions with soaring rhetoric. He'll be penned to the wall and asked for hard details not just on what but how he'll deal with the sub prime lending crisis and home foreclosures, the Iraq war wind down, criminal justice system reform, global warming, plant closures, the HIV/AIDS plague, Supreme Court appointments. Jay-Z and his itchy fingers won't be able to help him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Comments

[RAND7044]

You have officially jumped the shark.

[milo9]

Amen to that brother!

[Gogetter]

Mr. Hutchinson, I'm starting the get the feeling that Obama offends you on a level that has nothing to do with the election. I don't know your work outside of political opinionating well enough to guess why. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe your just another Clintonite who can watch her lie about her record, lie about her experience, exibit unashamed hypocricy(accusing Obama of cheerleading for McCain), dismiss voters whom she thinks she doesn't need, de-value votes from states she didn't or won't win, watch her and her camp stir racial resentment among blue collar whites(painting Obama as the uppity, affirmative action negro that doesn't know his place),... You can witness all of this, and not a word of criticism. But, Obama "brushes off his shoulders", and here your are. By the way, Clinton has more reason to want out of the next debate. With all the flak that ABC took over the last debate, do you think there's a chance in hell that she'll get another free ride in the next one?
I once heard a line in a movie that went something like this. "Don't believe your press; you're not the bad, but you're not that good, either." Obama may not be a good as people or his campaign make him out the be, but he's not a bad as you make him out to be, either.

[jungpatawan]

You should change your middle name from Ofari to Ofay. Did your phake Phd diploma mill teach you what that means? You're just another player hater. Is that too "street" for you? What kind of jive-ass book will you write after he wins and disproves the rest of your oeuvre?

JP

[thinkb4uleap]

Earl, I must compliment you. You are, if nothing else, consistent.

- You are consistent in your Barack Obama hateration
- You are consistent in your vacuous commentary
- You are consistent in your sophomoric analysis

Unfortunately it seems you are squandering your opportunity here on Huffington Post since you are consistently being taken less and less seriously.

[justus949]

Earl, this is brilliant! THANK YOU!

[pottery]

The only reason this might be made to be a subject of controversy, is that it followed a debate during which cultural issues loomed larger than substantive issues, and Senator Obama handled a dearth of those questions pointed squarely at him. Brushing it off one"s shoulder if hardly a new gesture invented or used solely, or even mainly, by hip-hoppers. Have you considered that his supporters glee at the gesture was that it showed that he plainly was handling a minor setback with some aplomb?

It did occur to me, after discussing with friends and others the matter of Tavis Smiley leaving the Tom Joyner show, that you are one bitter dude! I suspect that like Smiley, Obama affronts your position as a leader and thinker among the people! You suggest that black people should be open to credible argument, and that"s true, yet you resent the hell out of people who disagree with you!

I"m starting to hear very keenly an almost egomaniacal self-centeredness regarding your own perception of every event, even when a scratch is a flip. You"re trying to bring light to the masses EOF, and they"re - just - flipping you off. Don"t lose heart Earl, I know personally that the sting of being flipped off passes with time.

[rpmcestmoi]

Good to see you only cover the big issues...moron!

[Lon]

In your last column you gave the silly "did he extend his middle finger" as one of the examples of how silly this campaign has become. Now you repeat it making sure that people wonder again, with insinuations suggesting you suggest it is serious but can't prove it. Why are you humiliating yourself like this. In the past you have been much better than that. Supporting a presidential candidate really should not require abasing yourself in this way.

[goo]

First the "scratch" was simply that. Same speech, different angles. Check the photos and clearly you will see that he used two fingers to scratch an itch. Earl, have you really run out of actual issues to write about?

I'm disappointed and you're another victim of this silly media behavior. TMZ writes more compelling stories.

[jvarga]

Its a shame that everyones comments aren't showing up. I've got 99 problems and that is one.

[kcjc]

I told my husband when we were watching the news about his finger because there was a black man behind him who burst out laughing when his finger went up. He thought I was mistaken. I do not trust him even more now. Is this the "new politics"......NO THANKS. I will be forwarding this article. He needs to grow up. I agree about the cancellation, it says everything that needs to be said about him.
Look how defensive so many are. 11 MILLION viewers watched the ABC debate. I learned something new. I do know the issues, but I do feel we need to know more about this candidate other than scripted, you're my pal news moments.

[JohnFromCensornati]

I guess Obama can't save us from Osama bin Laden at 3 AM, either.

[sjl106]

obama is an arrogant pompous ass, and he and his supporters are the biggest sniviling whiners I have ever witnessed. If obama is the nominee he will never be President. obama is such a joke, cancelling a debate because he can't perform without a teleprompter, how pathetic.

[Sporin]

Brushing his shoulder off was a great gesture, he was brushing away the ridiculousness of the ABC debate and his voters understand that. He certainly wasn't endorsing the gansta' lifestyle. ->insert eyeroll here

[MzTexas]

It's not about a "simple hand gesture," it's about the inexperience and immaturity of the candidate. Not everyone is enamored of Mr. Obama, nor should they be. Personally, I'm not enamored of any of the three remaining candidates. I believe the media has given the country a group of media-created candidates for RATINGS. Poorest slate of candidates from both sides that I've seen in 30+ years of voting.

[JohnFromCensornati]

LOL.
Worse than King George W and John Kerry?
I don't think so.
Maybe you should vote for wRong Paul.
He's still "in it".

[Syco]

I can't believe you wrote an article about a simple hand gesture.
And you left out parts a the song

[SCMagnolia]

Oops! make that "nod" to Jay Z

[SCMagnolia]

Earl...Let's not forget his initial not to Jay Z from the jump with "99 Problems....." theme song.

[Azjhutch]

Oooooh. Guess he forgot the 11th commandant: Thou shall not criticize our Barack. If the dude was flipping off Hill, he's a idiot and a jerk.

[heather11483]

I just think it's time to look ahead to November. Wednesday's debate showed that there's clearly nothing else to talk about when it comes to these debates. Clearly. When you reach a point where lapel pins and retired preachers (both issues that have been dissected over and over again already) are the hot topics, it's time to stop. The Clintons claim (falsely) that they're piling onto Obama because it's what the GOP will do, but Obama doesn't want to play the same games as the republicans. If he did, he would have pointed out that Hillary rarely wears flag pins, and that the Clintons invited Reverend Wright to the white house for counsel in their time of crisis. He, unlike her, doesn't want to try to render a fellow democrat unelectable because that just hurts us all.

Anyway, you're certainly entitled to your opinion about the debate, so, I'll just respectfully dust this speculation off my shoulders.

[kcjc]

The fact is he has no reply. President Clinton did not sit there and listen to hatred for 20 years. Lapel pins may seem questionable to you, but his comment was he did not wear one because he wanted to show his patriotism by doing things. Why not both? Look ahead to November? If Senator Obama is the nominee the republicans will destroy him. Nothing Senator Clinton does will make him less electable. Those of us that follow the news had read about Ayers, heard about wright (but did not have the pictures) and knew there were questions that needed to be answered. Senator Obama seemed surprised, but he should have leveled with the voters. By bouncing around and acting so indignant, he lost the only vote he had in my household. Just wait until the republicans put their two cents worth in. We'll have President McCain.

[jesusquintana]

Earl Ofari, stop being a hater. After today I hope you give up your attachment to Republicans like Hillary and McCain and throw your support behind Obama.

As for your assertion that they're just toughening him up for "when the going gets really brutal in the fall general election," that's a straw man argument and you know it.

[mediamarv]

Jealous or what? Can't figure out why you go to such lengths to dump on Obama. Has HRC promised you a position in her administration??

Strange.

[Gibbons]

Thanks for another one Earl. What did you think of his stereotyping the white working man?

[Countess]

This is the intellectual level of the Clinton campaign. We must invest massively in education or there will be more Clintons coming along.