Yes We Can ... Calm Down

Joel Stein has Obamaphilia—“I want the man to hope all over me”—and he worries it’s not appropriate. The LA Times columnist knows Barack Obama isn’t a maverick "taking risky positions like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich" and wonders whether it's out of proportion—and in bad taste—to get worked up about a mainstream politician.

Stein phones his Hillary-loving feminist mother for perspective, to “de-Romeo-ize.” “Some part of me want to say, ‘People wake up,’” she says. She's swimming against the tide, though. Stein would like to see his fellow Obama-maniacs do less crying in public, but he finally concludes that he “can’t root against a person who believes he can change the world.” (More Barack Obama stories.)