Afrosphere debate on Obama being called Wonder Boy

Hmmm, boy. Totally outof line. Journalism deals with facts right? Well, the fact of the matter is simply this, Senator Barack Obama is over forty (40) years of age. That would mean that Obama is a middle age male not boy. So why label him boy? Can we say controversy.

Maureen Dowd manipulates the use of boy, by inserting the word game. Not good enought to get around the negative connotation that is a no-no among the journalistic standard as well as that among the African-American community calling grown ass men as boys. But Dowd much more crafty with words attempts to polish up the crude reference of boy by the United States Representative Geoff Davis when discussing Obama



Dowd writes:

The last few weeks have not been kind to Hillary, but the endless endgame has not been kind to the Wonder Boy either. Obama comes across less like a candidate in Pennsylvania than an anthropologist in Borneo.

Dowd insinuates that Obama has more growing to do before he is ready to relate to all the people as a candidate Matter of fact Dowd points out that people who are suffering like Hillary in spite of ill gotten financial favoritism of her husband. Including the fact that local folks love her because she is willing to take a shot of hard liquor.

Just as he couldn’t knock down the bowling pins, he can’t knock down Annie Oakley or “the girl in the race,” as her husband called her Tuesday — the self-styled blue-collar heroine who reluctantly revealed a $100 million fortune partially built on Bill’s shady connections

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Dowd like Bill Clinton took offense to certain statements made by Obama such as Annie Oakley, gun toting, religion and the recreational sport of bowling by folks who are struggling to support their family under the strain of an economy that is suffering under the George Bush administration.

Dowd defends some of these folks response mechanisms toward a government that is not listening to them as values rather than apathy. Matter of facts these are values found in her own family!

I’m not bitter.

I’m not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments and a passion for bowling. (My bowling trophy was one of my most cherished possessions.)

My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren’t bitter; they were bonding

Dowd uses the word clan to substitute for KLan mentality for those folks who go to the extreme to bond together to resist changes that they can not control by government. Values that built around hatred toward those who are not race white and surpassed them in a certain quality of life that is eluding their family and may not be their for their children. They are angry, but Dowd says they are not angry as she attacks Obama rise above many of these folks as not being enough to be a candidate of their America.

What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)

Obama did not grow up in cosseted circumstances. “Now when is the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who just paid off his loan debt?” Michelle Obama asked Tuesday at Haverford College, referring to Barack’s student loans while speaking in the shadow of the mansions depicted in “The Philadelphia Story.”

But his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite, along with the academic experts he loves to have in the room. As Colbert pointed out, the other wonky Ivy League lawyer in the primary just knows how to condescend better.

Dowd charges Obama as a wimp whom mother made it possible for him to attend prep school and that the credentials are the only reason why ivy league experts surround him. In essence, Obama is not really one of them just a chartered member.

So in closing, no matter how much it is explained away, boy is offensive, and I don't believe Dowd would call Obama "wonder boy' in a face to face meeting.