I am sorry but Cokie Roberts, irrespective of her famous LA poltico daddy, is an idiot.

Did she pronounce Hawaii as "ha y er"?  

My wife is from Myrtle Beach.  She affectionately refers to it as "that hell hole".  Having visited there many times in the past 14 years (in-laws still live there), I agree with her.  The place deserves the reputation as "the redneck riviera" or "tacky capital of the east coast'.  Given a choice I'd pick Hawaii too.  There's a lot that isn't remotely wholesome about MB at all; in fact, quite the opposite.

Because ABC News has a lot of credibility on the substantive aspects of Obama's campaign, they allow themselves the occasional moment to talk about visual and superficial impression matters.  

When I think of Hawaii, I definitely think "foreign".  I mean, Daniel Inouye looks kinda foreign and Higgins had a British accent, even if he was really from Texas.

Her comment looks like a classic case of "please fill in two minutes with random talk, using keywords Obama, vacation, and Hawaii in any position."

wtf is Myrtle Beach?

My thought at the time was what an ass, and not about her posterior.

Forget Myrtle Beach, Pedro says Obama should have vacationed at that other Palmetto State holiday hot spot, South of the Border!

Did the rest of the panelists break out in derisive laughter at her comment? Or at least wince?

Of course, what she (or someone responding to her) *could* have said is:

"After all, Hawaii is a state, it's part of his childhood and adolescence, and it's the dream destination for millions of middle class Americans, so I don't suppose that efforts to paint it "exotic" have much resonance.  After all, isn't Chinatown "exotic"?  There is a kind of subtle racism here that sees any vacation spot *in America* dominated by non-white people who don't fit into the NASCAR dad model as "foreign" or "exotic."  After all, no one would call a trip to Alaska "exotic," at least not in the sense intended here.  Just ask Ted Stevens."

But that would be to ascribe too much disinterested intelligence to Cokie Roberts, whose hostility to Obama has been patent for some time.  Thanks for repeating those RNC talking points, Cokie!

Also, by what measure is Hawaii "exotic" and New Orleans (at least before Katrina) is not?  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Cokie!

I look forward to the outraged e-mails to ABC from enraged Hawaiians.

Oh, and imagine, Cokie, or George, or that other guy from ABC news, do not get to host or "moderate" a presidential debate.  What a shame.

What matters is that she mentioned that his grandmother lives there.  I'll bet most folks would think highly of a man who uses his vacation to visit his grandmother.

On NPR this morning, Cokie was selling the same line, this time saying that his Hawaii vacation contradicted his claims to have roots in Kansas. Because, you know, they check your genealogy at the airport, and if you have roots in the Midwest, they don't let you off the plane in Hawaii. People from the Midwest are only allowed to vacation in Branson, Rapid City, and Orlando.

Cokie may increasingly be an out-of-touch pundidiot, but her daughter Rebecca Roberts does good work on XM Radio's "POTUS 2008" channel. Maybe it's time for the child to replace the parent.

I saw Cokie in person at some sort of panel discussion years ago, and I came away thinking she was a bit of a dim bulb.  This certainly tops anything stupid she said there, however.  "Foreign" Hawaii?  Sometimes these political talk shows end up straining so hard for controversy that I long for someone to channel John Cleese and suggest that the whole thing's a bit silly, and the meeting should be adjourned forever.

I've never been able to stand Cokie Roberts. Typical out of touch WASP who's lived in a world bubble that's as small as the one my redneck neighbors down the road who've never been further than the county capital live in.

I love the way the MSM helps the Republicans with their Obama-as-Un-American narrative. And not even because they want the Republicans to win, but because they are too unimaginative and intellectually lazy to come up with a real story. And because they love the sound of their own doomsaying I-told-you-so chatter.

I mean, even if the Republicans aren't bored with the same Democratic opponent narrative that they've been coming up with year after year, isn't the media? Wouldn't they like to drive the discourse in a different direction if for no other reason than the novelty of doing so? Don't they realize they have the power to drive it in a whole different direction if they so choose, rather than propping up the vapid propagandistic talking points of the right?

If Americans are gonna decide not to vote for Obama 'cause he's going home for a vacation, then really, Americans deserve what we get.

Geez Aeromonas, South of the Border?  Yikes!  SOB does serve the best 100% pure-beef Mexiburgers though (according to one of their myriad billboards).  I've never been brave enough to try one.  Perhaps Obama needs to try one to prove he's 'Murkin.  Then again, if Obama did go to SOB he'd be branded as endorsing illegal immigration, right?

In all honesty, when did the MSM so laughably jump the shark?  Or does ABC exclusively hire dimwits as 'pundits'?

John Kerry stayed home for his vacation and look what that got him.  The media treat politicians as they do any celebrity, with an emphasis on the trivial (what they wear, how they look, and where they go (and with whom)).  No substance, but how much substance do we expect from actors and other such celebrities.  Indeed, the media "stars" (including Ms. Roberts) are no less celebities than the subjects they cover.  Our culture is celebrity obsessed, and unless and until that changes don't expect any improvement in the media or the media "stars."

What this is is the talking heads bending over backwards to cater to what they perceive as the common man, as they did when they covered Obama's bowling performance as though it were the Watergate hearings. It's insanely patronizing and out of touch, and therefore shows perfectly how removed and elite they all are.

Didn't Obama admit to snorting Cokie at some point? Maybe that's why she's pissed...

Should Obama visit someone else's grandmother?  This is why people hate "the media."  

For example, why couldn't the media do something like drive a narrative that McCain's an out of touch elitist 'cause he has all those houses, was too spoiled to take advantage of the educational opportunities he had, relate his badboy antics and his academic mediocrity somehow to Bush's mediocrity and badboy youth, go on about what a privileged life he has led, blah blah blah blah blah.

It would be so easy to do this if they wanted to.

But instead they choose to speculate whether going to Hawaii for vacation is American (patriotic) enough.

I fail to see the downside in Obama visting his *white* grandmother, wherever she may live. Thank God it's not France.

But is Jindal really that good a surrogate? He pretty blatantly and repeatedly refused to answer the questions about race-baiting that seemed quite transparent to me.

Good point scire. You know why Obama is elite, though, right? Because he's obviously very very very smart. McCain, not so much. Bill Clinton could get away with being smart because he had a hick voice, and made concerted and constant efforts to dumb it down. The Bush family proves this perfectly - Bush the First, snob voice = snob = toast. Bush the 2nd - total rich boy and SON OF CONVICTED SNOB, but that voice and clear lack of need to dumb it down = gold.

It's all about the voice. Obama could be the son of a sharecropper and they'd still call him elitist. And because they all have that voice and education, they are doing it with some self-loathing. But what I'm banking on is that voters are tired of Bush and want to elect the smart guy this time, and the talking heads are stuck in the last election's theme.  

Cokie missed the larger points.  Obama got far, far away. Clever him!

It is time for him to think;--to make big decisions: he's got to select a running mate; he's got to assess the direction of his campaign and how he wants to go forward; and he's got to do it AWAY from all the noise.

Nor did Cokie credit him with the most brilliant part of this vacation: he doesn't have to open his mouth on Georgia and Russia, and that clearly and decisively will prevent his foot from ending up therein. With a little luck it will all be over by the time his vacation is.  And he can return and freely criticize just about  anything that any Republican says or does-- or doesn't do about it . Brilliant, as usual.!

Personally, I keep wondering why Georgia didn't enter into serious negotiations with Russia over this  whole issue in order to avoid bloodshed--like the way Obama would have done.

Psantillana is SO right on. What continually amazes me is how a  total dummy like Bush could have managed to prevent another 9/11 in two full terms as president.  Boggles the mind. Maybe this is what they mean by "dumb luck."

And how the heck did this  Iraq war of his cause one of Al Qaeda's founders to write that 9/11 was a terrible mistake and disaster for Muslims.  The guy actually wrote: What good is it to blow up your enemy's buildings if he blows up your whole country?  That was in the July 17 Economist in their special issue on Al Qaeda.

Just think what a REALLY smart president could accomplish.

This is why I don't watch those Sunday blab shows.  I suppose the kind of people who think of Hawaii as some "foreign, exotic" place think Lilo & Stitch was a foreign film or something.  And if Hawai'i is so foreign or exotic, why was Pearl Harbor such a big deal as to draw us into World War II?  

It is not my habit to assume extreme intelligence among the average 'Murrican, but frankly this time I can't even imagine who is supposed to be this put off by Hawai'i.  Wasn't a Hawaiian vacation always the ultimate prize on old game shows?  How much more American pop culture can you get?  

Then throw in the fact that Obama lived there, his Kansas-native grandmother lives there, and his Kansas-native grandfather is interred there.  Now when you pick on Obama for this vacation you're just assaulting family values, aren't you?  Seriously, has Cokie Roberts completely defaulted on her brain or something?  It is about time to start hammering the self-evident and insidious right-wing media bias, when the makeupheads start spouting this kind of inane drivel.  

elliesch: My cousin could not have written better sarcasm than yours, and he's only 13!

"The guy actually wrote: What good is it to blow up your enemy's buildings if he blows up your whole country?" He was not referring to Iraq but Afghanistan.  And, I was under the impression that the US went into Iraq to turn it into a democratic heaven as a model for a new Middle East, rather than "blowing up the whole country."  Or was that the after-thought?

"Maybe this is what they mean by "dumb luck.""

Exactly.

"Personally, I keep wondering why Georgia didn't enter into serious negotiations with Russia over this  whole issue in order to avoid bloodshed--like the way Obama would have done."

Yeah, if Georgia, a country the size of Maine, had TALKED to Russia instead of bombing South Ossetia in the middle of the night, perhaps Russia, a country twice the size of the US and know for ordering the tanks in at the drop of a hat, might not have ordered the tanks in, with the consequent loss of lives.

If you intend to use sarcasm as a critical weapon, it would be good to know something about geopolitics first.  Otherwise, you look - well, juvenile, like your "I looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul" favourite President.

What a strange couple of posts, elliesch. Almost as strange as an al Qaeda claiming Iraq as his country. Huh.

Anyway, back on topic: I read about Cokie's discussion of this on Sunday, so I wasn't surprised when she ruined my bowl of cereal this morning by trotting out the same schtick on NPR. She constantly dishes out the most idiotic CW possible. This Hawaii nonsense is not only dumb, it is just ridiculously condescending to the very people she says Obama is forgetting by not touring NASCAR raceways or something on his vacation.

"[I]n what bizarre conception of reality is Myrtle Beach emblematic of wholesome Middle America?"

My mom contracted malaria in Myrtle Beach in the 1940s. In more recent visits, I've usually gotten sun poisoning. So on that score it's more wholesome than it used to be. Also, it has wider beaches and fresher shrimp and sea scallops than most places, and much less hazardous swimming than the inexplicably fashionable Outer Banks of NC. The northern end of North Myrtle Beach, Cherry Grove, is the least crowded and least gaudy part of the "Grand Strand."

I think someone should mail te text of this thread to Cokie Roberts.  Just because she can't think it doesn't necessarily follow that she can't read. Or does it?

Oh, yeah. Cokie's daughter hosts a political show on XM? It smells like Tim Russert's son sat radio sports show deal. (A deal negotiated while the  "unproven" kid was in college.) Must be the results of that meritocracy the republicans are always trumpeting.

Cokie Roberts is a big fat poo-poo head.

Here's an idea for a commercial, re: the Michael Crowley-Cokie Roberts nonsense about Hawaii as "exotic" and not "middle American."  Conduct some interviews with typical middle Americans now flocking to Hawaii (preferably a forty-fivish white couple from Iowa or Michigan), noting their decidedly middle American incomes and how happy they are to vacation somewhere where you can use dollars; perhaps show some people middle American families that had to *cancel* their Hawaiian dream vacation due to home foreclosure or some such economic woe; throw in a couple of soft focus shots of Obama with his grandma; then cut to the number of McCain homes, size of McCain family income, cost of McCain shoes, etc.  That way, having disposed of the celebrity meme, they can destroy the un-American elitist meme as well.

Michael Moore, where are you now when we need you?