Uneasy Rhetoric

Now this is spin: in a Reuters article titled “Rare Flash of Anger from Obama on Halloween Night,” I found this quote:

The fact that Obama took time out for Halloween showed a candidate feeling confident about his chances on Tuesday, with polls showing him leading Republican nominee John McCain.

Did the writer stop to consider that, while the candidate may have a reason to be confident, the candidate is also a father with a seven year old and a ten year old daughter?  And as any parent knows, there are only so many Halloweens before it loses its magic and becomes just another reason to dress like a “slutty nurse/librarian/construction worker/stripper/etc.” and binge drink.  And Obama’s ten-year-old only has two, three years on the outside, before she stops believing her parents are the coolest people on the planet.

The same thing happened recently when Obama took time out of his campaign to vist his ailing grandmother. There were rumblings of his “confidence” in this race.

I don’t see confidence, I see a man who puts his family above his career.  Obama is a political animal, cut from the mold of the Chicago Machine. Yet, unlike so many others, he appears to have at least one item higher on his priority list than his election.

Besides, if this is Obama angry:

“Come on guys, get back on the bus,” he pleaded [emphasis mine] with journalists, many of whom had accompanied him from the airport to Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

He’s in control of himself.

If I were in his shoes, I would be doing exactly the same thing.