Amidst a barrage of unselfconscious digs at women's age, Cintra finally gets it honing in on the paradox: to get media attention requires we be outlandish; being outlandish makes it hard to be taken seriously. But she misses a few (dare I say generational) issues. For one thing Pink to our generation is something more than a color. Its the label used to denigrate lefties who hadn't quite yet crossed the aisle to "Red," but were definitely leaning in that direction. For another thing, the 'code' signifies a warning of trouble to come, specifically terrorism. So as sheer parody or metaphor, Code Pink signals a force moving left that needs to be reckoned with, lest worse happen. Cinta writes as if the alternative dress is haut couture. In fact, Code Pink made it legit for a generation of radical women to march and go to jail with a cohort of aging hippies who still dressed like drop-outs from a third rate European opera company. So, what she may think, it was a step up. Most important for me, though, is that Code Pink has reinjected that principled politics can be joyeous as well as "serious" in the boring sense. I've only been arrested with Medea once and it was in an out of the way Minneapolis suburban military corporation where we came to 'arrest' the CEP for war crimes. No media. If the nuns and spiritual tight asses had sung one more chorus of "Give Peace a Chance," I might have been arrested for war crimes. Thankfully, Medea joined me in a chorus of "Listen, White Man." This was no a civil rights rally, there were no African-Americans and only two Native people there...so the song was completely inappropriate. But it made my day and made it possible for me to come back for more.

James makes some excellent points about the stereotypes hauled out so that we can use Obama to project our own frustration and anger during the campaign. While the arguments about stereotypes are right, there is also an internal reason why Obama has avoided the angry black man role, namely fear of alienating the very white liberal constituency who are calling on him to 'fight.' Whether this self-limit is wholly strategic or whether it has become ingrained over the years by the instinctual sense any middle-class black man carries with him that anger will be misconstrued as assaultive by whites and so must be muted or expressed passively ("I's coming massa..." as the black servant in Finnean's Rainbow shuffles slowly to help the Senator who has had a heart attack)...really isn't the issue here. Nor do we know Obama's 'real' character. Malcolm X, whom I met several times, was the most gentle human being imaginable even in arguments. But on the stage, he could project his rage at injustice to millions and his public image was the epitome of the angry black man. The real issue in the campaign...and here, I do not fault Obama...is knowing the difference between getting 'angry' as a signal that you are capable of going off at any moment-- something LBJ was expert at--what might be termed anger for its own sake...(needed in the Cold War to make the Russians believe that the insane option of blowing up the world was a credible threat)...and embedding your rage at injustice in the sort of studied argument in which Obama excells. For most men, anger is not an expression of passion, but of the incapacity to modulate feeling, name it, or clearly articulate the thing you want to change. The effect of its expression is to isolate men not in a way that suggests strength of purpose-- what you want or don't want to happen-- by sacrificing strength of character. Obama knows how to fight without anger.

Although it may have passed your neighborhood, anyone who can should definitely see Frozen River. Critics didn't know quite what to make of it, in part because of the clear moral ambiguity of two women from opposing cultures (Mohawk and Anglo caucasion) forging a friendship while transporting helpless immigrants across the border. But its shot with all the beauty of an old black and white photo, capturing nuances in emotion and scenery you don't usually pick up. In my mind, the best film I've seen this year.

On a lighter side, I would strongly recommend a new mystery novel, for those so inclined, called Black and White and Dead All Over by John Darnton (Knopf). A thinly veiled portrait of the NYTimes by an insider and former Pulitizer Prize winner, it also has an exciting plot line. But I liked it best for the asides. There was much discussion of whether the last season of The Wire got it right with the Baltimore Sun. This book gets it right.

Given that McCain has the same basic handlers as Bush II, my guess is that this is the same strategy Bush used with Gore, to lower the expectations by getting the press to wonder "if he prepared?" This way, if he scores a C, its an A and so on. And it keeps the focus on performance rather than substance.