WWBGA: Why Won’t Barack Get Angry?

With Obama’s poll numbers tanking, his supporters are calling on him to “release his righteous rage,” as Aaariahhnah Huffington puts it. Huffington had a fascinating e-mail exchange with her good friend John Cusack, noted actor and political pundit. The two agreed on

…the American public’s readiness to replace the John Wayne take-no-crap-cowboy model of leadership with a Gregory Peck-does-Atticus Finch archetype…Now, as the crises facing our country intensify, and the campaign McCain is running becomes sleazier and more trivial, it’s time for Obama to unleash his inner Atticus — or at least the key element of Finch that Obama seems reluctant to embrace: righteous rage.

Really? I don’t quite see Barack as Atticus Finch, but I’m willing to go with that for the moment, I guess.

Cusack thinks that

Obama has waited long enough to show us this side of himself. Besides, we need to know that he can be a mean motherf*cker if he wants this job.”

I’d say he’s been pretty mean in his treatment of Sarah Palin for the past couple of weeks; it just doesn’t seem to be working. But I guess Cusack means Obama should be angry about issues. Arianna:

As a leader fighting for fundamental change in this country, Obama has to be willing to show us that kind of righteous anger. I don’t know about you, but when I think about what George Bush has done to this country — and what John McCain wants to keep doing — I consider outrage the only rational and legitimate response. So why don’t we see this outrage from Obama?

Gee, Arianna, maybe Barack just isn’t all that outraged about Bush’s policies. After all, he was opposed to impeaching Bush and Cheney, he voted for Cheney’s energy bill, and just recently he voted for amnesty for the telcoms that helped the Bush administration spy on Americans. Just what is it you think Barack is going to get outraged about?

Today Obama appeared in Concord and Manchester, NH. Did he channel Atticus Finch? The Washington Post doesn’t think so.

If Democrats were expecting a dramatic change in words, tone or temperament, they did not get it. While McCain attacked him as a pampered, fading celebrity, a sexist and a desperate bully, Obama stuck to familiar themes linking the senator from Arizona to Bush and Washington lobbyists.

Even after being prodded by the audience in Dover, Obama appeared reluctant to get too aggressive. Glenn Grasso, 39, a doctoral student, pleaded: “When and how are you going to start fighting back?”

Obama responded by calling McCain’s ads “just fabricated” and “just made up,” an answer that spurred some to shout out: “Lies.”

“Lies, that’s the word,” Obama said.

Oooooh! That’s more like it! Oh, wait…

CNN reprinted part of Obama’s speech in Manchester, NH:

“John McCain wants to have a debate about national security; let’s have that debate. I warned that going into Iraq would distract us from Afghanistan. John McCain cheerleaded for it. John McCain was wrong, and I was right.”

“The McCain-[Sarah] Palin ticket, they don’t want to debate the Obama-Biden ticket on issues because they are running on eight more years of what we’ve just seen. And they know it,” the Democratic presidential nominee said. “As a consequence, what they’re going to spend the next seven, eight weeks doing is trying to distract you.

“They’re going to talk about pigs, and they’re going to talk about lipstick; they’re going to talk about Paris Hilton, they’re going to talk about Britney Spears. They will try to distort my record, and they will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats intend to do.”

Hmmmmm…I don’t know if that’s quite the “mean motherfu*ker” that Arianna and John Cusack were fantasizing about. Besides, if you ask me, that line about “wanting to have that debate” is getting a little old, especially since Obama has refused to debate anyone since Hillary crushed him in the Pennsylvania primary debate.

Joe Biden was supposed to appear in New Hampshire today too, but the AP reports that

He canceled plans to appear Saturday with Obama in New Hampshire because of Hurricane Ike, the campaign said. But the two men met privately Thursday night in New York, and a senior campaign official said Biden told Obama they must keep the focus on McCain and the economy and argue that McCain would be “dangerous” as president given the volatility of the economy and world.

Uh huh. I’d like to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. I’d be willing to bet a few bucks that Obama showed a little righteous anger over Biden’s remarks the other day to the effect that Hillary would have been a better choice for Vice President. I don’t think that I buy the line that Biden cancelled his appearances because of Hurricane Ike. It seems a lot more likely that he’s been grounded and sent to bed without his supper.

When oh when will Barack get really mad and fight back against Republicans rather than Democrats? John Cusack wants him to act like African American movie stars like Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman

these are men who have the inherent dignity to express the kind of cosmic rage that comes from being human and responding to injustice. They are perceived as authentic and powerful precisely because they show us their anger as they fight for what is right and true and good. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t respect them.”

Cosmic rage? That’s a tall order there, John. Well, you never know. I’ll be waiting and watching….