The transformation of "cool"

Ian Tuttle has a piece over at National Review Online discussing recent comments by Angela Rye, executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus claiming that opposition to Obama is motivated largely by racism.  That's nothing new.  Nor is her claim that racism is disguised by various "codewords" that white people use as substitutes for epithets and prejudices that are no longer socially acceptable to express openly.  What is remarkable is one of the codewords she discerns in recent discussion of the President.

There's an ad, talking about [how] the president is too cool, [asking] is he too cool? And there's this music that reminds me of, you know, some of the blaxploitation films from the 70s playing in the background, him with his sunglasses," Rye said. "And to me it was just very racially-charged. They weren't asking if Bush was too cool, but, yet, people say that that's the number one person they'd love to have a beer with. So, if that's not cool I dont know what is.

She added that "even 'cool,' the term 'cool,' could in some ways be deemed racial [in this instance].  (http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/cbc-staff-opposition-obama-racist/592346)

So for those of you keeping score at home, "cool" used to be good; now it's bad.  Much like "dissent," which according to a bumper sticker once standard on Volvos and Priuses, used to be "the highest form of patriotism."  However, on January 20, 2009 it became the lowest form of racism.

That Obama's coolness should have been transformed from an asset to a liability is not unprecedented.  As a newly elected president, Jimmy Carter assiduously cultivated an image as a "man of the people" by, among other things, walking instead of riding in his inaugural parade, wearing sweaters instead of suit coats and carrying his own luggage when deplaning from Air Force One (although it was later revealed that the bags he carried were empty).  At first the American public approved of these gestures as a refreshing change from what many saw as the "imperial presidency" of Richard Nixon.  However, by the end of Carter's term, with unemployment, inflation and interest rates all in double digits and country after country falling to Communist takeovers, they seemed to symbolise the country's overall decline and lack of respect in the world.

Obama was blesseed with a similar honeymoon in which his obsession with celebrity and image was seen as "cool."  But image can only go so far without results to back it up.  George Costanza's failure to make any progress on the Penske file was not expiated by his act of humility in taking the smaller office.  Obama's failure to address the economic troubles bedevilling the American people is only exaggerated by the fact that he has chosen to take the biggest office in the land and is ostentatiously revelling in the perks afforded by that office.