Craig Brown: Obama chooses icecream

"I stand before this ice-cream truck today humbled by the task before me, grateful for the trust my wife and my daughters have bestowed upon me, mindful of the great and inspiring choice of popsicles and ice-creams and other light refreshments both borne and consumed by our ancestors before us. We should rejoice in this choice and this variety. It is the differences between iced comestibles that make them so attractive. So let us celebrate these differences.

"Daddy," says Malia Ann. "May I please have a Tutti Frutti?"

I look at her through these eyes, the eyes of a father both loving and dutiful.

"I say to you this, Malia Ann," I say. "And this I say to you. The Tutti Frutti is a fine ice cream. Of that there is no doubt. But let us go further than that. Yes, the Tutti Frutti has all the truly outstanding qualities of a great ice cream. It is cold. It is colorful. And it is good to the taste. It remains firm upon the stick, and is able within its noble resilience to endure the harsh heat of sunlight.

"But I tell you this, Malia Ann. Once an ice cream is eaten, it is eaten. And that ice cream remains eaten. For all its worth, that ice cream once swallowed does not have it within its power to reappear on that stick. That is our one true sorrow. But it avails us nothing to pretend that is any other way. So now, Malia Ann, is the time for realism. Now is the time for tough choices--choices that is in the heart of each one of us to address. Now, Malia Ann, is the time to confront the popsicle."— Craig Raine, Private Eye