Recently in Barack Obama Category

This young brother is really feeling the president's fade. 

President Obama bends over to let the young son of a White House staffer touch his hair, because the child wants to see if the president's hair feels just like his own.

For the first time in our history, an African American child visiting the White House can see that someone with hair (and skin) like his (or hers) can be anything he wants to be when he grows up - even president of the United States of America.  It's amazing to see that what an Obama presidency means for African Americans - inclusion, representation, unlimited dreams and long awaited, hard fought for change - is not lost on a child this small.

President Obama picked up a hearty lunch at Five Guys (the one by Nats stadium) Friday afternoon.  He ordered a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, jalepeno peppers and mustard. Dee- lish!

(For those of you who are unfamiliar with Five Guys, just know this one little fact:  Give an atheist a bite of a Five Guys burger, and you'll have her on her knees, shoutin' thanks to the Lord and speaking in tongues! They are that good.  Seriously.) 

Anyway - as you can see in the video,  the president is one of those guys who doesn't decide what he wants until he gets to the counter and takes forever to place an order. We like the prez, but that drives us CRAY-ZAY! He's also a chatty fella and seems to enjoy making small talk with the other folks waiting for food.

So what do you make of this excerpt from Yes, Looks Do Matter, a New York Times article on stereotypes and the Susan Boyle phenomenon?

Stereotypes are seen as a necessary mechanism for making sense of information.... When people don't fit our preconceived notions, we tend to ignore the contradictions, until they are too dramatic to overlook. In those cases, said John F. Dovidio, a psychology professor at Yale, we focus on the contradiction -- Ms. Boyle's voice, for example. While that makes us see her as more of an individual, we also "find a way to make the world make sense again, even if the way we do it is to say, 'This is an exceptional situation.' It's easier for me to keep the same categories in my mind and come up with an explanation for the things that are discrepant."

Even when presented with multiple exceptions to the stereotype, we often keep the broad category and simply create a subtype, Professor Dovidio said.

For example, President Obama challenged negative stereotypes about blacks, but some people may have come up with a subtype of blacks -- black professionals -- rather than challenge the overall stereotype, Professor Dovidio said.

Makes an interesting conversation, to say the least. 

First Lady Michelle Obama's well-toned arms have attracted many compliments and landed her on the cover of several magazines.  Not to be outdone, her husband Barack scored a few "hot bod" points himself this month, when Washingtonian put his presidential pecks on its May cover and declared that "Our New Neighbor is Hot."

This being Washington and all, the cover has inspired serious debate: Appropriate or not to put a half nekked U.S. president on a magazine cover and call him hot?  What about calling him beefcake, tenderoni or hunk o' hunk of burnin' love instead of hot?  Any better or no?  Do limitations on name calling apply to magazines only, or do they also apply to in person interactions? Say at a White House dinner, would it be okay to to introduce yourself to the president as Sasha Fierce and greet him with a respectful (albeit slightly husky and slurred), "Shawty, what your name is?" 

After these issues are resolved, Washington power players will return to solving the economic crisis.   

And puppy makes five.  Bo Obama became the newest member of the Obama family on Tuesday. Of Bo, the president joked, "I've finally got a friend," and had this exchange with a reporter:

Prez Obama: [Bo will] be sleeping inside the White House

Reporter: Is he gonna be in a bed?

Prez Obama: Not in my bed!

Just as the ladies on The View were reading the most hilarious exerpts from celebrity biographies, ABC News interrrupted programming with a special report. Damn.

The news was pretty important though.  President Obama stopped in Iraq Tuesday on his way back to the U.S. from Europe (more on his and Mrs. Obama's European tour later).  He spoke to about 700 troops, including Vice President Biden's son Beau, telling them that he and Michelle are working on providing additional resources for them.

 "We have not forgotten what you have done, grateful for what you will do and as long as I'm in White House you will get support you need and the thanks you deserve," he said to the troops.

Music star John Legend put The New York Post on blast for publishing a cartoon (above)depicting two cops standing over the bleeding body of a chimp that they've just shot to death.  Critics of the cartoon claim that the dead chimpanzee was meant to represent President Barack Obama in a racist fashion (chimps have historically been a derrogatory symbol of African Americans) , as the caption on the cartoon reads "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."  Barack Obama is widely viewed as the "spokesperson" for the stimulus bill.

Here's John Legend's letter to the editor, published in Friday's New York Post:

Dear Editor:

I'm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be funny to suggest that whomever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really?

Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our president has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?

If that's not what you intended, then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly provocative, racist and offensive to the sensibilities of most reasonable Americans. Either way, you should not have printed this cartoon, and the fact that you did is truly reprehensible. I can't imagine what possible justification you have for this. I've read your lame statement in response to the outrage you provoked. Shame on you for dodging the real issue and then using the letter as an opportunity to attack the Rev. Sharpton. This is not about Sharpton. It's about the cartoon being blatantly racist and offensive.

I believe in freedom of speech, and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still comes with responsibilities and consequences. You are responsible for printing this cartoon, and I hope you experience some real consequences for it. I'm personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your reporters, and I encourage all of my colleagues in the entertainment business to do so as well. I implore your advertisers to seriously reconsider their business relationships with you as well.

You should print an apology in your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist and should not have been printed.

I'm well aware of our country's history of racism and violence, but I truly believe we are better than this filth. As we attempt to rise above our difficult past and look toward a better future, we don't need the New York Post to resurrect the images of Jim Crow to deride the new administration and put black folks in our place. Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate our new president, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.

Sincerely,

John Legend

Rupert Murdock, Chairman of The New York Post, apologized Tuesday for the decision to run the cartoon.

Barack Obama looks as good in a tie as Jennifer Anniston.  Almost.

Tall and slender with an athletic build, Obama has the frame that fashion designers love to dress. So naturally, the top designers have thought about - fantasized about - dressing the debonaire democrat for his inauguration.

Women's Wear Daily asked said designers to share these fantasies with the rest of us.  And so they did.

See the designers' sketches of inaugural attire for Barack Obama here.

Vote for your favorite sketch here.

Read the full story in WWD here.

BTW, Obama had already selected his inaugural threads prior to the publication of these sketches.   He will wear a Hart Schaffner single button, notch lapel tuxedo. 

In case you missed it, here's the press conference at which President elect Barack Obama announced his selections for his national security team.  (He had the decency not to hold the conference during Tyra this time, thank the Lord.)

Warning:  The video is 27 minutes long, because each of Obama's nominees wanted to yap on the mike for a bit. (Hey, they are politicos, aren't they?)

The nominees make up a team diverse in race, sex, ideology, geography and political party affiliation.  Here's the scoop on them, pulled straight from an email sent by the Obama transition team:

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady, will serve as Secretary of State.

Secretary Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, will continue to serve in that role.

Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General and a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, will serve as Attorney General.

Janet Napolitano, Governor and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, will serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. Susan E. Rice, a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, will serve as Ambassador to the United Nations.

General Jim Jones, USMC (Ret), former Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the United States European Command, will serve as National Security Advisor.

Here's a peek inside of Barack Obama's Chicago headquarters.  As far as campaign offices go (usually dark, filthy, cramped hovels in leaky basements), these offices are very, very nice and well organized.