What's the Obama version of Camelot?

By Ralph Alter

President-elect Barack Obama, in the midst of a luxurious respite from the grueling schedule he maintained over the interminable 2008 campaign, enjoyed a round of golf Sunday at the Olomana Golf Club near Waikiki. While his score wasn't reported, it comes as no surprise that Obama is a lefty. Jeff Zeleny of the NYT reported:

His his foursome stopped at the halfway house for a snack, the President-elect generously offered the pool reporters lounging nearby a beer, which surprisingly was declined. Displaying a healthy appetite, Obama ordered a couple of hot dogs with cokes and orange passion drinks and an interesting local treat:

The spam musubi, a local luncheon specialty, consists of spam and a fried egg on a bed of rice, all held together with a dried seaweed wrap. (Visualize a very big sushi role, slightly larger than a Hostess Ho Ho.)

Growing up in Hawaii, Mr. Obama is quite familiar with the local delicacies and will likely request that some Hawaiian staples be made available by the White House kitchen staff.

Hawaiians consume more SPAM per capita than the residents of any other state in the union, effectively downing 16 tins annually of the dish some claim to be an acronym meaning "Something Posing as Meat." The dish was introduced to the Islands in WWII by the military men stationed there who derisively referred to the meat as "Ham that didn't pass the physical" or "meatloaf without basic training." The Hormel company product has become so popular in Polynesia that it is offered on the menu at both Burger King and McDonald's and is popularly known as The Hawaiian Steak. The native penchant for the high sodium, high-in-saturated fat treat is celebrated annually in the Spam Jam held in Waikiki the last week of April.

As the Administration-elect rounds into form, many media pundits stretch to find similarities between the storied Kennedy administration & coterie which came to be known as Camelot. Perhaps the Obama administration and its hangers-on will appropriately be viewed as Spamalot.

Ralph Alter blogs at Right on Target