Barack Shows His Color

Here's something I've been waiting for from Barack Obama: flashes of irritation. I mean--he's always mister cool, mister warm smile, mister million miles away, a fascinating study in the kind of emotional remoteness you need to develop in order to survive as a Kansan-Hawaiian-Indonesian-Kenyan college boy, law student, etc. The kind of guy that would wear his white shirt with the sleeeves rolled down and buttoned while roller-painting a wall.

But last week we learned that he showed a little color in the press room when the gaggle tried to get serious about what he thought was just a ceremonial occasion. And this morning, we learn that he snapped at his own beloved sidekick for cracking his knuckles too loudly (the sidekick--that would be Rahm Emmanuel--apparently snapped right back).

As the president's therapist and meditation counselor, I would say: it's about time: nobody can maintain Obama's icy emotional discipline for long without sending his blood pressure into the nosebleed zone. As a heartless bleachers-seat politics watcher, I say: hoo haw, some entertainment at last. Hey, fight, fight! As a manager of the presidential image, I'd say I'm not sure. A few breaks in composure are probably inevitable from the Leader of the Free World. But a little of this goes a long way with the voters: snap just once at the wrong guy (or child, or kitten) and watch your poll numbers hurtle down faster than you can say "pardon me."

Update: Oh, and Joe Biden. Of course. But I think we see the emergence of an impressive pattern here. In all three cases (Biden, Emanuel, the (collective) press) we have creatures who are by nature impertinent, loquacious, and unhousebroken. Obama is none of these three. Yet he has made the choice, eyes open, to associate himself with this kind of riffraff these people. Well, I guess you could say athe "choice" of the press was somewhat constrained: if you go into politics, you are stuck with it. But in the case of Biden and Emanuel--two of the people closest at his side as he embarks on this great adventure--I think you'd have to say that he took them warts and all, well knowing how they would act; I wonder if he knew also how he would respond?