The daily worship
Barack Obama may be the first U.S. president who can successfully pull off the shaka, a Hawaiian greeting Hawaiians say has various meanings, from “hang loose” and “cool” to “thanks.” The hand gesture, also a common greeting in surfer culture, consists of curling the three middle fingers and extending the thumb and little finger. The president-elect, looking uber-cool with his White Sox baseball cap on backwards, flipped the shaka to a crowd of about 30 people as he left a gym on a Marine Corps base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu…
Oh, he also played golf — which caused a certain commentator’s head to explode when it was done by his predecessor (starts at 1:47).
December 31st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I wonder if Obama will begin emphasizing his connection with Hawaii and, except for invoking Lincoln, downplaying his connection with tarnished Illinois.
Not only would such an emphasis be politically adroit, but it would acknowledge that the importance of Asia will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.