I delete all over your censored

Clare's "Obama baby" video is now at over 11,000 hits and I get a new comment every few days. Most of these are the kinds of things you'd hear at a baby shower: she's so adorable, etc. And that's about the level of discourse that video deserves. But occasionally there's a comment that, generally with a great amount of cursing, calls Obama "Satan himself" claiming that he voted for infanticide and throwing babies in the trash. (Wha??? Someone sponsored a bill for this?)

Now, I get that this video is labeled with Obama's name, and that it clearly indicates a voter's preference and is in some sense advocating on behalf of a candidate. But it's also primarily a proud-parent video of my precious little baby. And so I think it's doubly inappropriate for these troll-ish comments to appear...not only ignoring all standards of rational debate, common sense and basic courtesy, but forgetting that this video is about Clare more than it is about politics. Please don't cuss on my baby's video, people. That's just awful.

mommy's precious little political pundit

Well, Clare didn't make the cut, but CNN ran a story on the incredible number of Obama baby videos on youtube nowadays...apparently enough to constitute their own "genre." And the number of hits on Clare's video have spiked--now almost 1500 views and a few more comments as well, some of which seem really engaged in figuring out if the baby videos are just mimicking sounds or these babies actually mean something. This is apparently turning into a real discussion.

Now, of course MY baby is a total verbal genius but I think it's hilarious that people would take seriously the "issue" of what these babies mean. CNN got a speech development expert to point out that "ba" and "ma" are the two most commonly babbled sounds a baby makes (in almost any language, I would add) and therefore "Obama" is just a baby-friendly name that's fun and easy to repeat. Ummm...DUH. (That's also a baby-friendly syllable fun and easy to repeat. Let's say it again: DUH.) And anyhow, if someone were to disagree with that obvious point...would we really therefore be contending that these babies and toddlers are somehow expressing some kind of considered political opinion? Clearly if there is any pre-opinion being expressed it's a matter of picking up cues from the folks. The little monkeys are pretty good at that, after all.

So what's the point, if it's not that these babies are geniuses, or that they're really endorsing a candidate?

It's just damn cute, for one thing.

And it says to the world, not "hey world I'm a genius toddler and I'm voting for Obama" but "hey people, I have a proud mommy and daddy who think I'm cute and who support Obama for President." Now that means something.