If you haven’t noticed I try not to straight “report” on news that’s already been pretty well covered on the net or blogosphere and when I do address them its because I’m providing at least what I believe to be a new perspective, angle or opinion.  To that end I decided not to “report” on the news of Diddy’s ad campaign for his fragrance “I am King” and how he plans to leverage the campaign on the strength of Barack Obama’s historic presidential victory.

“When you see Barack Obama, you see a strong, elegant black man and when people see my ad, it’s almost like that’s the trend,” Diddy proclaimed.

At first, Diddy’s marketing tactic looks to be just another innocent capitolistic attempt to exploit Barack Obama for financial gain.  But it raises an issue of much larger proportions.  Diddy has made a very dangerous association between “I am KING” and Barack Obama.  I know the Nation will write me off as being my usual cynical self but this issue is worth addressing.

In the months leading up and weeks following the election we’ve seen everything from posters to T-shirts, to dramatic public displays of affection for our new President-Elect. Although I’m very excited about the new administration, I believe there are some that have drunk the Kool-Aide by the gallon.  We must remember that this is our President…a politician, not a monarch and dare I say a dictator.  I’m sorry but I  just get flashbacks to Idi Amin, Jiang Zemin or Fidel Castro with the propaganda and seeming endless supply of Obama paraphinelia.  Its a stretch and I know the American people are smarter than that but lets not lose perspective.

Our country is in a very vulnerable state right now and ripe for being taken advantage of.  I think its time for us all to collectively take a step back, a deep breath and realize that although there’s cause for tremendous hope we must keep everything in perspective.  Obama works for me, you, the Nation, OUR American Nation now and we must hold him accountable by the laws and standards that he set forth on his campaign platform.  We must be careful not to give him or others in the administration a false sense of unconditional support.  Aight I’m off my soap box