On yesterday's CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips made no effort to curb her enthusiasm for Barack Obama. She spoke with feminist author and Democratic activist Naomi Wolf about a recent cover of Ms. Magazine featuring Obama in a Superman pose. Some feminists took exception to the cover; others, like Wolf, did not. As the segment ended, Kyra Phillips summed up as follows:
PHILLIPS: Well, if anything, I think this just exemplifies how Barack Obama is going to be out of the box on everything, whether it's who he decides to have speak at the inauguration or what covers he decides to go on the front of or who he puts into his administration. It is all going to be about going out of the box and making people talk and bringing everybody together, whether it's gender, race, whatever it is.
Thinking out of the box, that's Obama alright. Mr. Originality's stacked his administration with loads of Clinton administration retreads. In terms of magazine covers, it's doubtful that he decides which periodicals feature him. Did he pose as Superman for Ms.? Not likely. That would have been a step down for his messiahship.
Then there is Phillips's belief that Obama is "bringing everybody together, whether it's gender, race, whatever it is." That's patently unrealistic. The notion that any politician can bring everyone - regardless of life experiences, political views, values, opinions, and traditions - together is a liberal pipe dream. And a selective pipe dream at that. After years of bashing President Bush and other Republicans, it's expected that magically all Americans will suddenly, joyously unify as one big happy family under Obama.
Earlier this week, Phillips mentioned in an exchange with Tony Harris, another CNN Newsroom anchor, that she's attending the inauguration on her own time:
HARRIS: Good stuff. OK. We are one week, one day out from Inauguration Day. Look at that scene.
Kyra, can you imagine Washington, D.C.?
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: I'll tell you what. I mean, even though I'm not working that day.
HARRIS: Right. I know you're going to be there, right?
PHILLIPS: I am going to be there. I do not want to miss this moment in history. That's what it is. I mean, when's the last time we remember this kind of buzz over a president?
I'm sure that Kyra Phillips, with her starry-eyed prediction of Obama "bringing everybody together," is more than happy to keep amplifying the buzz.
