Bad Faith, Or Just Amusing?
When I saw the above video, I remember a moment of irritation I had back in 1992. That’s when George H.W. Bush was running for re-election against the young dark horse Democratic candidate, the Governor from Arkansas Bill Clinton. There was a moment on the nightly news when President Bush was doing a “press the flesh” campaign appearance, and got in line to buy some groceries, and was amazed at the bar code scanner in use by the lady behind the counter. This made national news as supposedly showing how much of an out-of-touch super wealthy aristocrat he was. I wasn’t even a Bush supporter that year, and in retrospect I still think he was a lackluster President, but, it seemed like really cheap politics to me. In 1992, bar code scanners were fairly common, but had been common for only a handful of years, and many smaller and older stores still didn’t have them. Why would anyone expect that a man who had been President of the United States for four years, and Vice President for 8 years previous, would have directly encountered such things before?
Ditto modern coffee machines in gas stations. I drink a lot of coffee, and brew my own at home most of the time, but a month or two ago I was in a gas station and got some coffee, and it took me a minute or so to figure out how to use the dispenser because I’d never used a machine of that design before; it wasn’t just a pot, it had buttons and things. It took me a massive 60 seconds or so to figure it out and work it properly.
Why would anyone think your average Senator regularly stops for gas at gas stations and knows intimately every design of coffee dispenser? Does anyone honestly think that Senator McCain and Senator Obama regularly drive themselves to work and buy their own coffee at all of the half-dozen or so different designs for coffee makers?
No, I’m not “defending Hillary” because this could just as easily have been McCain. In fact I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of substance-less events like this in the coming months. Which to me are harmless until they start to dominate the debate, becoming something brought up at every opportunity as if it’s something deep and profound rather than just mildly amusing and without great significance.
I notice that too in politics: quite often people can’t just laugh at something because it’s amusing, without assigning some great hidden message in it.
Senator Clinton futzed a bit with a gas station coffee machine she’d never encountered before. Ha. Cute. Can we move on now?
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9 comments
Dean, if you check the record, the bar code scanner in question was a new one with new features. That was what amazed President H. W. Bush.
As for Senator Clinton: big deal. The only newsworthiness I see is that it’s an echo of the (inaccurate) H. W. Bush story.
Busy people who can afford to do so hire people for transportation and maintenance, and even shopping. That in and of itself doesn’t prove they’re out of touch.
It would be encouraging that a person in a position of power and (comparative) wealth might choose to still do things like the rest of us. To face the same sort of small inconveniences and pleasures that we do.
But you’re entirely correct that pouncing on small things as if they were big ones is lacking in both sense and justice.
On the other hand, if you dislike a big thing about a person, it’s not entirely unreasonable to symbolize it by a small thing about them. John Kerry’s wind surfing was certainly a small thing, and in a person who wasn’t a flip flopping liberal elitist, wouldn’t be an issue. By like the synecdoche of using "Washington" to refer to
the entire federal government, it evokes what you really mean, even though it doesn’t have the entire meaning in itself.
So I think that harping on the coffee machine would be fair only if the person doing it was just using it to refer to something genuinely substantial.
Wait… if we can call her, even at 3:00 AM, but she can’t use a coffee machine, then how is she going to be alert at 3:00 AM?
Is this what the Dems are reduced to? Picking at each other over racist statements that were never uttered by the candidates and the operation of coffee machines? I guess I now graciously accept our new overlord Sen. John McCain!
I don’t think the 1992 bar code scanner incident was a big deal. I don’t see why anyone expected the president/vice-president to be doing their own grocery shopping.
Some candidates have tried to position their opponents as elitists who are out of touch with the common man, while they are more average people. This has always seemed silly to me. Why would we want an average person to be president? We should want one of our best people elected president, and realistically anyone running for president of the US has probably not bought their own groceries or gotten their own coffee for a long time. I don’t have a problem with that.
If you want a President who still maintains ties with the common man, can use coffee dispensers with ease and isn’t amazed by bar-code scanners, you should vote for… Nader. Probably.
Good luck with that….
I agree, no one truly expects longtime highpower elected officials to buy their own groceries, pump their own gas, etc.
But then please don’t try to brand yourself as "The Common Man" afterward. You don’t "feel my pain". And frankly, as long as you’re taking care of that pain named AlQaida, Hamas, Iran etc., so I don’t have to, I’m OK with that.
The amusing thing to me wasn’t that she was confused by the machine. I’m confused by the machines.
The amusing thing is that she is jacking with the crapachino machine with 4 pots of drip brew sitting right beside it.
Phelps’s last blog post..Dictator of America
Phelps, face it: "crapachino" is now in. I know an extremely blue-collar everyman with his very own cappucino machine. The fad is now everywhere.
I like cappuccino. I’m no fan of whipping instant coffee and calling it cappuccino.
Phelps’s last blog post..Dictator of America
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