KAILUA, HI - Barack Obama may be the first U.S. president who can successfully pull off the shaka, a Hawaiian greeting Hawaiians say has various meanings, from “hang loose” and “cool” to “thanks.”
The hand gesture, also a common greeting in surfer culture, consists of curling the three middle fingers and extending the thumb and little finger.
The president-elect, looking uber-cool with his White Sox baseball cap on backwards, flipped the shaka to a crowd of about 30 people as he left a gym on a Marine Corps base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he is vacationing.
Obama, born and largely raised on Oahu, then walked over to greet the crowd, which had waited through a brief cloudburst to see him. Righting his baseball cap as he walked, he shook hands before posing with four babies.
Front Row Washington
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Hawaiian ’shaka’ greeting comes natural to Obama
Posted by: Ross Colvin
Tags: Front Row Washington, body language, fashion, Hawaii, illinois senator, language, life, presidential, psychology, sen obama, young voters
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People here are missing the point. We’re arguing that the media is not being the media. Have they even analyzed Obama’s plans or how he’s going to lead? What about what Obama has done for Illinois? You know, like a journalist for Reuters is supposed to do?
Journalistic integrity is dead in this country.
- Posted by Jethro[...] I don’t mean ’cause Mr. Hope and Change was elected. I mean like [...]
- Posted by 2008 coolest year of the century | BlogWonksWow, I didn’t know “über-cool” was wearing a hat backwards! By the way, Reuters, if you took your journalists/typists heads out of Obama’s butt long enough, you’d realize that, Mr. Bowling isn’t that cool. Maybe it’s the stuttering when not in front of a teleprompter or how he seems to stumble on basic facts (57 states, anyone?), but “cool” ain’t it. He can deliver a speech, though. And he’s Hawaiian. And uh, umm, uh, he’s about as qualified as Princess Kennedy-Schlossberg. How many times did she say “ya know” in a TWO AND A HALF MINUTE INTERVIEW? ONE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO TIMES, ya know. If that was Palin, Reuters would have that as a lead story for weeks. Here’s what AMERICA thinks is cool, Reuters, a woman that can shoot a gun, change local and state politics for the better, raise her kids, look hot and not give a damn about what stupid, self-serving typists in the very liberal media say about her. You liberal “journalists” (just typists, really) have no integrity to report hard news stories with damaging implications about your precious Democrats, going so low as to refuse to indicate party affiliation (D) just because you idiots WANT TO LEAVE IT OUT! That’s why your services are not going to be needed soon. REAL journalists, not the typists at Reuters, don’t care who gets caught in a story and report the facts. You may now return your heads to Uhbama’s butt where you feel safe.
- Posted by Tider1701Why are people offended by a Hawaiian acting like a Hawaiian, but not by a fake cowboy doing a bad imitation of a good ole boy?
- Posted by EmThe president whose from Hawaii uses the shaka!! Horrors!! He must be a secret, chicago machine funded, socialst, Gangsta!!! Eeek! Those preschoolers and grandmas (and every other Hawaian and every tourist whose spent more than two minutes in Hawaii) who use the shaka greeting…Also secret, chicago machine funded, socialist, Gangsta’s!
- Posted by EmA backwards hat!!!! What in tarnation has come of this here country?!? Why pretty soon wimmens will be a’wearin’ pants.