Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Why the Marshmallow Cannon Matters


This video of President Obama shooting the marshmallow cannon in the celebratory science fair in the White House East Room is doing the rounds today. It represents the partial fulfillment of yet another Presidential promise, one that always meant a lot to me, embodied in this lovely declaration of Obama's:
If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House we're going to lead by example. We're going to show young people how cool science can be.
Of course, I agree that this shows our President at his most charming and affable. But I do think that it is easy to overlook what it means about the current Administration that they had the good sense to see how winning an episode this was -- it is the White House itself that put this footage online for folks to see, this geek enthusiasm is the face of a President facing re-election they are explicitly choosing to present to the world. And just as the incessant self-congratulatory anti-intellectualism Republicans like to broadcast in their own self-promotional efforts goes right to the heart of the small, mean, crabbed, scared, broken, suicidal vision Republicans at their worst (which these days, I'm afraid, is almost all they have left) implement whenever they get the chance; so, too, does the warm, curious, supportive, open, humorous, affirming vision glimpsed in this little detail attest to a real alternative available to us, the better way forward the Democrats provide at their best.

1 comment:

jollyspaniard said...

He's the best president the USA has had in my lifetime and he continues to be very popular across the world. He doesn't deserve the bad rap he gets from a lot of progressives.