Is America Ready for a Hawaiian President?

This election season has already seen so many "firsts," including a lady candidate, an extremely old and crazy candidate, a Mormon candidate whose Mormon dad was also a candidate (40 years ago), a Mexican candidate, and a man-who-dresses-like-a-lady candidate. If only Dr. Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson or Ted Kennedy were still alive today, they would surely approve of this motley group of losers we've boldly considered for the American presidency.

But there is one hurdle of humanity we, as a nation, may not be quite ready to jump: Even with all of America's race problems solved, are we, as a nation, ready to send a Hawaiian to the White House?

Presidential "hopeful" Barack Obama is, as you may have learned from the teevee, a native of the distant, mysterious "Sandwich Islands" of Hawaii.

While we sometimes consider these romantic isles as "part of the non-contiguous and non-continental United States of America," Hawaii did not become a civilized U.S. state until August 21, 1959. The Hawaii where Barack Obama was born -- just two years later -- was still a wild tropical paradise. Here is how Mark Twain described the islands where the Infant Obama grew up:

All the natives are Christians, now, but many of them still desert to the Great Shark God for temporary succor in time of trouble. An irruption of the great volcano of Kilauea, or an earthquake, always brings a deal of latent loyalty to the Great Shark God to the surface. It is common report that the King, educated, cultivated and refined Christian gentleman as he undoubtedly is, still turns to the idols of his fathers for help when disaster threatens.

So it is important to wonder if a Hawaiian president would also worship the Great Shark God when disaster strikes.

But there's a more crucial question for our troubled nation: Would the Great Shark God choose to help "the mainland" solve our many problems? If so, perhaps it is time to hope for the kind of change that could maybe be "good" for the country instead of having everything be so terrible all the time.

Perhaps a Hawaiian could be the American president, after all.



Ken Layne is the managing editor of Wonkette.