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

[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.