'American Vertigo', The Revenge of the Little Man

[pinto]

The Revenge of the Little Man

He can't manage to say "stem cell" without tripping himself up. Stumbles over numbers and acronyms, beginning with that of the National Urban League, the black civil-rights defense organization to which he has been invited.
He fumbles with unemployment rates and the number of primary school teachers in Ohio. He has, in his expression, in his eyes, which are set too close together, that faint look of panic that dyslexic children have when they think they're going to make a mistake and will be scolded for it but simply can't stop once they've started. He frowns with concern when he talks about the city's poor neighborhoods. Takes on a fake tough-guy look when he broaches the subject of Irag. When he utters the word America or army, he stops short or, rather, stiffens as if at the sound of an invisible bugle.

***

That said, watch out. This shy man is shrewd, too. This child is a cunning child. He's clever enough to call the president of the National Urban League, Marc Morial, by his first name, and to begin his speech, just after a prayer, with praise for the Detroit Pistons, the local basketball team. He has the talent to tell joke after joke and, like a good comedian warming up a difficult audience, to be the first to laugh, noisily, at his own wisecrack. He has the intelligence to call the two important black leaders who are sitting in the front row, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, by their first names, too, so as to diffuse their hostility.

from 'American Vertigo, Traveling in the Footsteps of Tocqueville', by Bernard-Henri Levy
@ 2006, Bernard-Henri Levy, Random House.

A great series of vignettes and reflections on America, as the author retraces de Tocqueville's travels in America,
173 years later.