Using the U.S. president-elect as a yardstick for daily decision-making 

Heather Mallick
CBC.ca
November 16, 2008 

With hard times ahead economically, emotionally and weather-wise too, it's time for an advice column. Coincidentally, I will be teaching my university writing class how to compose an advice column this very evening. Be compassionate, I will tell them. The woman who wrote to Cary Tennis at Salon.com about her boyfriend — "We've been together five years and he still won't tell me where he lives!" — needs both a private investigator and a boost of self-confidence. "These things happen" and "We've all been there" are good things to say. "Are you nuts, lady?" is not.

But recently, all my guidance has been coming from one source: What would Obama do?

Off-gassing Obama

Our crush on the U.S. president-elect has let off its carbonation in some way. I do feel a void in my life now that my side has won the White House. I was so used to getting skittery at the mention of Fox News, staring at Guantanamo footage and thinking, "Dude, you're not getting due process in my lifetime," telling myself that E. coli and Crytospiridium in my drinking water because of less government inspection was a small price to pay for lower taxes and more freedom in my water choices.

As a way of regulating one's daily life, "What would Obama do?" is not the worst I've ever asked. When I was a teenager, my guides were "What would Chuck Lefley, No. 24 of the Montreal Canadiens do?" (I was hooked on that team) or "What would Carly Simon do?" (Answers: He would pass to Yvan Cournoyer. She would definitely buy those cool chunky-heel boots and the silver cuff bracelet.) Later it was "What would Springsteen do?" (Go down by the river, drive stolen cars, yearn for better times) and when we had teenagers, "What would the Dalai Lama do?" (Breathe. Order wine by the crate.)

But in these times, Obama seems to be a good husband and father, a calming presence in an international cash storm, someone with residual affection for the polar bear, a guy who might well appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the Environmental Protection Agency, someone with an eye for cool. How he gets away with domestic tailoring, I do not know.

Correction: Alert reader John Lawson wrote to inform me that Obama does not dress exclusively in the sturdy homegrown suitings of Hartmarx of Chicago. There he was last Thursday on front pages around the world, his sports jacket slipped open to reveal … Canali! I knew it. Only an Italian designer could drape fabric like that.

But if Obama buys Canali, so must I.

Divining Obama

It's nice having an adviser at my elbow morning noon and night. What would Obama do? He'd get out of bed for one thing. I can do that. He'd have an hour-long workout, cardio one day, weight training the next. Sorry, no can do, Obama.

Okay, what would Michelle Obama do? She'd wash her hair, use volume foaming texturizer and CHI thermal protection. I feel Obama would approve of his wife's choice.

Then he'd write a speech for the Trudeau Foundation in Montreal on Canada in the World: Aspirations and Concerns for Canada's Future and it will be a barnburner, which my speech will not be, but I have Hope.

I judge that Obama would power-wash that deck a second time using an environmentally friendly soap and then rake — Obama would never leaf-blow — 30 bags of leaves in the back garden for civic collection. It's more community tidying than community organizing, but every bit counts.

Between campaign rallies this month, Obama was reading Steve Coll's Pulitzer-winning Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. At 700 pages, it has been described to me as a welter, a confusing mass of disparate allegations of CIA failures. Nonsense. With Obama's imprimatur, I read it in two days and enjoyed every page.

What else would Obama read? Here are the books I have on order:

• Alice Munro's Best Selected Stories, despite the Calgary Herald masterful review deploring her scanty plots, hasty character sketches, trivial details, padding and CanLit banality.
• The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England, a handbook to the 14th century.
• Geert Mak's The Bridge: A Journey between Orient and Occident on Istanbul's Galata Bridge.
• Mrs. Beeton's Complete Book of Puddings.
• Nigel Slater's Real Fast Puddings.
• Monster, a book about Austrian dungeoneer Josef Fritzl.
• How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.

Other advice from me, Obama-approved:

• Only buy things you will live with forever: tumbled stone flooring, garden rocks and trees, Mad Men posters, every season of CBC's Intelligence on DVD.
• Pomegranate cava. So festive, so Spanish, so cheap.
• Marks and Spencer is now selling online internationally despite the owner's misgivings. It's expensive but you know St. Michael's lasts forever. It's investment men's underwear.
• Buy the smallest car you can fit into. Sell your Chrysler boat now at any price. It will pay off as gas prices soar again. Obama approves your choice.
• Buy your reading glasses online.

I will end here because you do know that soon president-elect Barack Obama will cease to be an oracle. The shine will come off him. He'll let Robert Gates stay at the Pentagon. He'll do a Margaret Thatcher and have no women in cabinet. By March, we'll probably be drinking hemlock.

So enjoy this tranquil time and follow my advice, whispered in my ear by the president-elect Barack Obama. His stock is high. I'd short-sell it, betting it will go down. You know I'm right.