Should have seen this coming.  All this talk of "Manny being Manny."  Manny long ago entered the rarefied realm of divas known only by first name: Babs, Madge, Celine, Cher.  How long did you think it was going to be before he threw his cell phone at the help like Naomi, or proclaimed like Mariah: "The nature of my life, the nature of what I do, is divadom, it really is"?

Then you've got the Globe running headlines and teasers screaming: "Shaughnessy: Manny's actions are not OK."  "Not OK?" This phrase is a fairly recent addition to our public discourse along the lines of "my bad," and at least as equivocal.

The dumbed-down reaction does seem to fit the nature of the Diva, if it doesn't quite fit the nature of the offense: shoving a 64 year-old to the floor for indicating it might be difficult to get him sixteen tickets to a game at the last minute, even if the 64 year-old could purportedly have kicked Manny's ass in a barroom brawl. 

But otherwise "not OK" is not OK in my book.  What's next, a "time-out"?  There is something at once condescending and childish about the expression, and it reflects a lack of conviction about whatever behavior it purports to address.  It's in no way adequate for anything but a four year-old's hissy-fit. 

Even so, somehow it's wormed its way into the highest orders of public speaking.  Think of John Edwards' speech endorsing Barack Obama:

There is another wall that divides us. It's the moral shame of 37 million of our own people who wake up in poverty every single day. This is not OK. ... [A] government that argues that water boarding is not torture. This is not OK. ...

Maybe — maybe — you'd tell your four year old that torture is "not OK," because your four year old doesn't have "heinous", "unconscionable", or "abhorrent" in her vocabulary.  Most adults do. 

Even a legendary orator like Obama is prone to ruining what might be a great speech with a dumbed-down word or phrase.  Take his now famous Iraq speech, in which he reaches the pivotal point:

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.

Never mind, Obamoids, that he is here equating militarism with patriotism, in a positive way.  I'm talking about being opposed to "dumb" wars.  The language so falls short of the gravity of the sentiment that it almost makes you wonder if the speaker really understands the gravity of the sentiment.  Or is he simply being condescending?

Ask someone who's had their legs blown off by a roadside bomb if this war was a "dumb" idea.  Somehow "dumb" doesn't quite capture it.  Diminishes the real horror of it, doesn't it, a bit?

When the press reacts to Manny's fits and tantrums with "not OK" they merely encourage the perception of Manny as an overgrown four year-old.  And while he may well be, there's a sort of built-in, "awe shucks, he don't know no better" factor at work with "not OK," too.

Personally, I think he's much more than that.  We should call his little outburst what it is: Divalicious!