Don't take this as defending a network political correspondent for dissing Hawai'i. Cokie Roberts shot her mouth off about our islands in exactly the way it irks us the most - dismissive, as if we're just a place for tiki bars and surf lessons, not a place where real people actually live and work.

But reading a transcript of her words makes what she said seem much worse than how she said it. If you check out the clips on YouTube, you'll see she was meaning to be flip. She was trying to make use of the 15 seconds of airtime she had on ABC's This Week before one of the other on-camera smarty-pants guests cut her off by saying something even more clever and tart. The point she was trying to make was that Obama shouldn't be vacationing at this point in his quest to win the presidency: that he should be touring heavily populated, heavily Republican states and trying to win over voters there.

"... he has certainly come nowhere near closing the deal," Roberts said about Obama. "As we've talked about before, in this year that should be such a Democratic year given all the other indices, he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off this week to a vacation in Hawai'i ... does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawai'i and I know Hawai'i is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

The next day, she basically said it again on NPR.

So, yes, Cokie Roberts could have chosen her words more carefully. But then again, isn't this the image Hawai'i is going for? Isn't this what the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau has been selling? The exotic American destination, where it is so unique you'll feel like you're in a foreign country but, happily, everybody speaks English and you don't have to change money. Hawai'i — the ultimate vacation destination, where you leave work and worry behind.

Why get upset when someone on the Mainland buys what Hawai'i has long been selling?

Hawai'i always gets stuck in this spot, this wanting it both ways. Yeah, we are different ... but we're not THAT different. Yeah, we are exotic, but don't SAY it that way! You make us sound weird and odd and ... small.

Well, Hawai'i may be small, but, Ms. Roberts, it is not insignificant, particularly to a certain presidential hopeful who was born here.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.