I was reading an article discussing General Clark's recent comments regarding McCain's qualifications to be "commander-in-chief." (The thought being, roughly, that having been a prisoner-of-war is brave and shows strong character, but isn't the same as command experience.) I was thinking about that phrase, commander-in-chief. And began toying with the idea of McCain as "prisoner-of-war-in-chief," reflecting on the way that a person's formative experiences and character can come to define a presidency: Nixon as rogue-in-chief, Reagan as movie-star-in-chief, Clinton as bubba-in-chief.
In this vein, and if McCain is to be prisoner-of-war-in-chief, what would Obama be? I think about aspects of his character and formative experiences, and think, maybe something like community-activist-in-chief? Perhaps, less charitably, he could become our Urkel-in-chief. There's definitely something to the idea that, like the sitcom prototype (the legendary Urkel), Obama manages to transcend racial and cultural stereotypes in part through his nerdiness – which is to say, nerdiness as an essential stereotype runs "deeper" than race. Which actually says something pretty positive about the state of race relations in America, maybe. I think it was Joel Stein who first suggested the comparison between Obama and Urkel, but I don't know that most of the comparisons have been entirely meant to be positive. Still… who am I, as pale white ubernerd, to judge?