10/05/2012 - Myclipp

Seeking Original Bliss
WASHINGTONIn 1983, Genevieve Cook brought a
bottle of Baileys Irish Cream to a Christmas party in
the East Village. She left with 22-year-old Barack
Obama’s phone number. The lithe Australian assistant
teacher at a Brooklyn grade school was soon in a
romance with the lithe future president. In the diary
entries she shared with David Maraniss, whose new
biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” is excerpted in
the June Vanity Fair, Cook presages Obama’s
relationship with bedazzled American voters: passion
cooling as he engages in a cerebral seminar and a
delight in doubt. Sunday, Jan. 22, 1984: “A sadness, in
a way, that we are both so questioning that original
bliss is dissipated.” Thursday, Jan. 26: “Distance,
distance, distance, and wariness.” Saturday, Feb. 25:
“His warmth can be deceptive. Tho he speaks sweet
words and can be open and trusting, there is also that
coolness — and I begin to have an inkling of some
things about him that could get to me.” When she told
him she loved him, he replied, “Thank you.” President
Obama is still a cool customer. He has a rare gift: Even
when he does the right thing, by the time he does it
The New York Times/ - Politics, Sáb, 12 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
and in the way he does it, he drains away excitement
and robs himself of the admiration he would otherwise
be due. Why doesn’t he just do the exhilarating thing
immediately? Why does he always have to be dragged
kicking and screaming to principle? Not everything is a
calculation. His embrace of gay marriage was not a
profile in courage. It was good, better than continued
“evolving,” but not particularly brave. He has been in
office three and a half years and he is running for
re-election, trying to bring back the thrill with a lot of
constituencies and donors who felt let down by his
temporizing. Who knows how long he might have kept
evolving, while his advisers gamed it out, if Joe Biden,
Arne Duncan and Shaun Donovan hadn’t forced his
hand by speaking out in such an unabashed way in
support of same-sex marriage. Obama told ABC’s
Robin Roberts that Biden “got out a little over his skis.”
The controlling Obama team did not like the fact that
the uncontrollable Biden’s forthright statement to David
Gregory about being “comfortable” with gay marriage
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