Let Them Eat Waffles

It seems not long ago I imagined a post-race, post-gendered Kumbaya moment in which the two Democratic candidates would be gamboling in slow motion across a pasture filled with buttercups and hope. Yet here I sit, pondering the dilemma of Hillary Clinton trying to convince the world that she's more willing than John McCain to "totally obliterate" Iran, while the "racially transcendent" Barack Obama's great dignity and intelligence are tirelessly berated in round-the-clock coverage of jibber-jabber from the crazy ex-minister of his church. "His electability is at stake," gloat the brainless, breathless commentators on Fox. Of course, if it weren't Reverend Wright, someone would find Obama's barber and record him saying something stupid and sensational. Or his plumber, or his grocer, or his dentist's grandmother. What's more, if people think this frenzy makes Hillary Clinton more "electable," then they haven't paused to consider that her turn is surely coming: I'm picturing earnest interviews with Bill Clinton's tobacconist and Monica Lewinsky's dry cleaner, chock-full of Shocking Details No One Ever Dreamed Of.

Apparently Obama's barber, plumber and grocer weren't at home. So they've had to let his waffles do the talking. In case you missed it, when Obama was campaigning in Pennsylvania, he went to a diner and had waffles for breakfast. Another patron scooped up his plate of uneaten remains and offered them for sale on eBay. The patron even specified that a DNA sample might be obtainable, since Obama's unwashed knife and fork were part of the deal. Bidding shot up to more than $20,000 before eBay removed the posting. Since then, the blogosphere has been abuzz with the epistemology of breakfast food. Are waffles truly the choice of champions? It was an effetely Belgian waffle, no less--as foreign and unpatriotic as a French fry!

This "post-civil rights" moment is not what I'd expected. In fact, it feels all too familiar. In New York City, Judge Arthur Cooperman found three undercover detectives not guilty of all charges in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell, an unarmed man leaving a club after a stag party early on the morning of his wedding day. The police shot fifty rounds at Bell's car, with some of the bullets going wild and lodging in buildings as far as a football field away. Yet even regarding misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment because of these stray bullets, Judge Cooperman ruled that "questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums." While Bell's death was "tragic" and "unfortunate," he found that the prosecution had failed to prove that the detectives weren't justified, based on their perceptions at the time. I don't think much of the judge's statement, but I am more distressed by discussion taking the verdict as a blanket presumption in favor of whatever startled inner demons an officer "perceives." On the radio and chat shows one hears clichés to the effect that "no one can understand what it's like to be in their position" or "it's a dangerous job--you can't second-guess them."

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