Why "Blacque Obammer?"

From now on, I will refer to our new president as Blacque Obammer. My strategic reason: People might react negatively, but (hopefully) they'll read on, even if only for a sentence or two.

And that's all I'll need to stimulate thought and to propose my own counter-measures.

What's in a name: Genesis of Blacque Obammer

As for the first name:

When creating this pun, I was going to go with Black, since I wanted to focus on his race. Front and center: his race. Why? Well, ask the question another way: Why did such large numbers of voters focus on precisely that aspect during the Democratic primary? This is exactly what they did, for can you imagine a similarly unknown white man with such a thin resume and lack of experience having won the nomination?

So, admit it or not, race was an important factor among his supporters. So I decided to keep that focus there, more or less as a reminder as to what it is about BO that had attracted national attention in the first place.

But...I didn't go with Black (too simple, too obvious). I wanted something a bit more elegant, while still connecting to race. Our new president is elegant, perhaps even a bit aristocratic in his bearing. Which is good, since that beats the hell out of the Neanderthals we've suffered with for the last eight years. So I decided: "Blacque it is!"

I wanted to infuse extra meaning, so I created an acronym:

B is for "Barack-ratic" - a pun on the word "bureaucratic" as a reference to what will prove to be Obammer's preferred style of governance - by bureaucracy. This is an improvement over Bush's style, but I believe Blacque will carry it to an extreme.

L is for "Leader:" I put the word leader in quotation marks. If our new president actually leads, rather than panders or postures, then I'll remove the quotes.

A is for artful...and not in the good sense of that word.

C is for co-opter (of)

Q is for Qualified

U is for underlings'

E is for expertise

All together, Blacque makes for an interesting, perhaps prophetic description of our new president:

Barack-ratic Leader: Artful co-opter of qualified underlings' expertise

As for the last name:

The bammer (that is, the one who bams) I had in mind was Rahm Emanuel. Bam has several definitions* which I feel apply quite well to Rahm-bo:

• "an imposition; a cheat; a hoax" - derived from bamboozle

• "to cheat; to wheedle"

• "imitative of the sound of a hard hit" [Rahm could easily be considered a hard hitter.]

When our new president needs a hard hitter, I can see Blacque calling out to Rahm: "Oh, Bammer! I could use your discreet touch here." Therefore, I dub the one who would call out "Oh, Bammer!" to be none other than Blacque Obammer himself.

Why bother?

Did I just now waste a lot of effort just to create an elaborate pun? Not really, for I feel that words have great power. And these two words - Blacque Obammer -  might actually lead people to think (many for the first time): "What have we gotten ourselves into?" If I can do that much, then I will consider my efforts to have been worthwhile.

Steven Searle for U.S. President in 2008

"What's in a name? Well, that all depends on the name, the context, and how carefully it's contemplated. But please, make no mistake: There can be much in a name"  - Steve.

The Best Party Available

* source of bam definitions: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Contact me: bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

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