What happens when, for once, things don’t go Barack Obama’s way?

Does he turn into a petulant schoolboy?  The following video was shot at an Obama rally in Raleigh, North Carolina a day after Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia.  Take a look at it:

The gesture at 01:18 into the video has stirred up some controversy.  Was Obama flipping the bird at Hillary Clinton?  He was commenting on her aggressive performance at the debate when the gesture occurred.  Some, like Matthew Miller at Race 4 2008, are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Says Miller:

Maybe, I’m just naive and too eager to ascribe to Obama good intentions, but this doesn’t scream intentional to me. After the crowd starts to rumble, Obama has a slightly confused look on his face for a split second, before dropping his huge grin. As if to say “I didn’t expect that line to get a huge response, but after all I am the Obamamessiah. Best I smile to let them know I appreciation their adoration”. In other words, he has the look of someone who’s on the outside of the joke. I think it’d be a mistake to make a big deal of it, but it seems newsworthy for a slow Friday.

Frankly, I looked for that “confused look on his face” and couldn’t see it.

But, in Miller’s favor, I’d like to point to 00:18 into the video—to the fact that Obama scratches his face near his nose with the pinky of his right hand—the same hand he used later in the video to “flip the bird”.  I think that shows that his face was already itching when the video started.  I think it might be easy to infer that he was actually scratching his face with his middle finger later in the video—not flipping off Clinton.

But in this case, it’s all in the eyes of the beholder, isn’t it?  It’s possible that Barack was, in fact, making a gesture of contempt at the New York senator.  The tenor of his speech throughout the video is flippant and dismissive.  The shoulder-swiping gesture later in the speech suggests that he was in a combative mood.

If you take the “bird” gesture and the “shoulder-swiping” gesture in combination, you might even say that the candidate from Illinois was simply being arrogant.

Again I ask:

What happens when, for once, things don’t go Barack Obama’s way?

You decide.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, petulant schoolboy, video, Obama rally, Raleigh, North Carolina, Democratic presidential debate, Philadelphia, gesture, controversy, flipping the bird, Hillary Clinton, aggressive performance, intentional, Obamamessiah, scratches his face, gesture of contempt, New York senator, flippant, dismissive, shoulder-swiping, combative mood, candidate from Illinois, arrogant