There was a time when everyone tsked about the mere mention of Hillary Clinton's cleavage, but now there's an all-out discussion of the prez-elect's manboobs. Is that wrong?
IN THE COMMENTS: Simon said:
Compare and contrast. Creating a heroically manly image is cult of personality 101.Famous Putin picture at the link.
ONE MORE THING: "Do not forget Sarkozy!" Our commenter Chip Ahoy made this:
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He looks effeminate, but he is kind of swishy, anyway, so that's not a real surprise.
For a smoker, he really has too much body fat - he needs to cut down on fried pig intestines.
Poster fodder for the guys here who masturbate dreaming of O - yes, Michael, I am writing about you.
now there's an all-out discussion of the prez-elect's manboobs. Is that wrong?
Just the term manboobs. We have pecs, not boobs.
Please make a note of it.
Pecs are muscle fiber. Manboobs are fatty tissue. Men can have both. We can discuss whether those are pecs or manboobs... or implants.
(Reposted after accidentally having the word "we" before "men" -- which serves me right after my outrageous use of the term "manboobs.")
Manboobs are like breasts, as beer belly is to pregnancy.
I'd cut him some slack. He just came off a political campaign when eating is the only entertainment (and you're not allowed not to). After the holidays he can get back in shape.
Oh, my. Sorry. I don't find him attractive in the least, and I'd like him to keep his shirt on. Is that asking to much? *sigh*
And I thought the term was "moobs".
*not looking again*
I hate it when you say "Everyone is .......". I just don't need that right now.
Well he doesn't have manboobs. I also don't think those are implants either.
Back in my weightlifting days, there were a few guys in the gym who suffered from a bad case of gyno mainly due to roid abuse. Then you just have your overly chubby guys who develop the man boob. It's pretty obvious and I think Obama falls into the pec category.
What are the "men in shorts" rules?
Compare and contrast. Creating a heroically manly image is cult of personality 101.
On the other hand, I could stand to have seen a little more of Hillary's cleavage...
Darcy - Althouse's men in shorts rule is a model of emphatic drafting: "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.."
I prefer manboobies, it's more playful
What are the "men in shorts" rules?
Ann should write a book about it. Perhaps she can convince the university to let her teach a
course entitled: Men in Shorts and the Law.
Thanks, Simon!
What?? :)
What are the "men in shorts" rules?
Ann thinks men in shorts is an abomination although I do recall her giving some French guy a pass.
See she lives up in the Arctic region of the country and is only exposed to pasty sticks that count for legs.
On the other hand, I could stand to have seen a little more of Hillary's cleavage...
Simon, we need to talk buddy. I might need to call Trooper for an intervention.
I can't tell if they're moobs or pecs, but he looks better than the majority of American men, so kudos to him.
Also, if you haven't checked out what Drudge is doing with his pic, Putin's, and Michelle's...go look. Hilarious.
Butt. Michelle's.
Talk among yourselves. Compare and contrast Hillary's.
#%*&. I didn't want to see Putin shirtless either. Thanks, Zach.
Hey, Mark O...you're not getting away with that. Opinion. Then discuss. ;-)
Frankly, given our recent experience, fitness is the last thing I hope for from a president.
Simon, watch me clear this brush on mah ranch. And then watch me land this fighter jet.
All I can say for certain is that when a woman wraps a towel around the bottom of her swimsuit, it never bodes well. Think Wheezy.
Poor Sully.
I imagine he's quite, uh...
Excited?
Now if Obama would just grow a beard.
Dreamy!
All I can say for certain is that when a woman wraps a towel around the bottom of her swimsuit, it never bodes well.
Bingo.
He's definitely in better shape than his prior People Magazine beach shot.
I don't have a problem with him and Michelle being at a beach house in their bathing suits. I do have a problem with the press publishing photos of it.
Thank goodness Matthew Brady never shot Lincoln in his bathing costume.
He just came off a political campaign when eating is the only entertainment
"Can I eat my waffle?"
For a smoker, he really has too much body fat - he needs to cut down on fried pig intestines.
Wow. He's black so he must eat chitlins. Thanks for my daily dose of racism, you filthy piece of garbage.
I think Michelle has a nice figure. And I understand the towel comments, but honestly, some women are just modest, I think.
That would be my guess, Darcy. One of the reasons I'm happy not to be female is that it's acceptable for guys to wear baggy swimwear without comment. (I still would rather lose a few pounds before I even do that. But still.)
Wow. He's black so he must eat chitlins.
So THAT'S what chitlins are.
Damn, you do learn something new every day.
I'm happy not to be female is that it's acceptable for guys to wear baggy swimwear without comment.
I think most women prefer men to wear baggy swimwear. Mrs. Hoosier insists that capital punishment should be extended to men who wear Speedos in public. No appeal just immediate execution.
I think most women prefer men to wear baggy swimwear.
Men have it so easy!
What most women would actually prefer is that all men look like Michael Phelps in a Speedo.
Because they don't, society complains if men don't wear baggy swimwear.
What most men would prefer is that all women look like Giselle Bundchen in a swimsuit.
Because they don't, society complains about women being too fat in their swimsuits (or having the gall to cover up with a towel!).
Mrs. Hoosier insists that capital punishment should be extended to men who wear Speedos in public. No appeal just immediate execution.
She'd be a busy executioner on European beaches, I suspect. Many offenders there.
What most men would prefer is that all women look like Giselle Bundchen in a swimsuit.
I'll speak for myself and say that I think on the whole, women look far better in swimsuits that most guys. Even Mrs. Hoosier commented to me once when we were soaking up rays in Florida that I get to see hot babes at least 75% of the time whereas she gets to look at the overwieght old guys in the black Speedo who keeps showing off his buttcrack.
I do hope that Phelps takes a few thousand of the millions he made and goes to see a dentist.
He shaves his chest?
Eeeewww......
Putin, too?
Eeeewwww-ski......
I'll speak for myself and say that I think on the whole, women look far better in swimsuits that most guys....I get to see hot babes at least 75% of the time whereas she gets to look at the overwieght old guys in the black Speedo who keeps showing off his buttcrack.
Women that feel they don't measure up often will just not go to the beach. That's why there's a high hot babe:normal woman ratio at the beach.
Darcy said...
I think Michelle has a nice figure. And I understand the towel comments, but honestly, some women are just modest, I think.
Without sending Mortimer on new paroxisms of screaming racism (he was right to call it on the chitlin crack, BTW...) Michelle is afflicted with black woman's "Too much junk in the trunk" syndrome without waist-up "symmetry". (And for Mortimer's relief, Hillary has the same syndrome. MO may have 55%-60% of her body mass below her waist, with Hillary it is closer to 70%.)
Light smoking or not, Obama himself is in - obviously, pretty good shape.
And as for bad lifestyle habits - as Obama confronts the massive mess America is now in at home and abroad, few jobs safe from "Free Trade"..I'm reminded of the Lloyd Bridges character in "Airplane" pooping up every five minutes with a new failed quitter declaration- I picked the wrong time to quit coffee, smoking, drinking, sniffing glue... You could sympathize.
And I'm sure FDR and pals had their moments as they went behind closed doors and contemplated 31% unemployment, no money, Japs and Nazis on the horizon....The scotch and smokes were broken out and consumed in mass quantity..."Boy, are we screwed. Another Chivas, please, Mr. Ickes..!"
If I troll back through Althouse posts from four years ago, will I find Simon warning us about the cult of personality behind the manly W at the wheel of his truck, or clearing brush on the ranch sound stage?
Women that feel they don't measure up often will just not go to the beach. That's why there's a high hot babe:normal woman ratio at the beach.
Well I think that's an image problem with a lot of women. What I call hot is not necessarily 100% the Gazelle :-) Bunchen look. You might be surprised to know that hotness for most guys is defined a lot lower than you might think it is.
Ooops, peter beat me to it.
Beth
The Obama cult is already out there. Maybe you've missed the news reports of statutes of the Great Man under construction, or the Commerative Coin. Or the countless t-shirts and posters in every mall kiosk depicting him with that faraway gaze.
Hell there is nary a magazine, from People to the TV Guide that doesn't have his picture on it one week to another.
Hoosier Daddy said...
"What I call hot is not necessarily 100% the Gazelle :-) Bunchen look. You might be surprised to know that hotness for most guys is defined a lot lower than you might think it is."
I don't think lower is right - differently might be a better fit. I wasn't sure who Gazelle Bunchen was, so I googled her and I take it that this is representative, in which case my first take would be that she's too young, too thin, and I don't think she has an attractive face. But that isn't to say that my standard of hotness is lower than that of someone who looks at her and thinks "hubba hubba" - I just find different things appealing. It's no slight against her.
Interesting the way so many comments worry about a cult thing when in fact conservatives are so loonie about Ronnie and want his face on Mt Rushmore (or less).
The important issue is not what he looks like, not the shape he is in, but the simple fact that a camera guy got close enough at the beach to grab that shot...and the Secret Service?
Simon you're right, I should have said differently rather than lower.
I think what many women fail to realize is that the supermodels are rarely photographed outside of the studio and as that shot you linked shows, facewise, Gisele is pretty average looking. I think if you actually look closely at the faces of the average supermodel, you'll probably agree it's more about facial structure than actual looks and makeup does wonders.
Interesting the way so many comments worry about a cult thing when in fact conservatives are so loonie about Ronnie and want his face on Mt Rushmore (or less).
Actually Reagan deserves his own mountain.
Let's just say that I don't begrudge Obama his Mt. Rushmore spot but it would be nice if we can wait to see how his first term goes.
In a hand-to-hand confrontation, I think that Vladimir Putin would [graphic demise] Bush and Obama, at the same time.
VP is just bad news.
Beth, how many schools were named after George W. Bush prior to his inauguration? Of course it's tempting to simplify matters, to look at single events in isolation, but that's to deny that events are interlinked. (That is why Althouse was absolutely right to insist on examining the context of Obama's "lipstick on a pig" line, for example.) One has to see these things in the context of their broader pattern; there was no Bush iconography, that I recall, no acceptance speech before greek columns; Bush never spoke in messianic tones about changing our politics, his wife never talked in messianic tones about how we were broken souls awaiting the soothing hand of her husband to rescue us from our lives as ordinary. I don't think that Bush heralded his primary victory with a Mosaic speech about the tides receding before him, either (although for the record, I think Obama is more Knute than Moses*).
With any luck, this ridiculous crying over spilt milk that has erupted -- some of it, to my astonishment, from grown ups, whom one might have thought would at least have the decency to show embarrassment at the matter -- over Obama's choice of Rick Warren may remove the shine from the apple as the slower among us catch up to what I've been saying since December 2006.
______
* Yes, yes, I know that story has been often misunderstood, and that I'm using it here in the misunderstood sense. Myth is malleable.
Hoosier Daddy said...
"as that shot you linked shows, facewise, Gisele is pretty average looking."
Fortunately for the average woman, I wouldn't even say average. And look at her stomach in that picture - I guess some people like that, but I fail to see how malnourished is a sexy look.
...the cult of personality behind the manly W at the wheel of his truck, or clearing brush...
There was no Bush cult of personality. When reporting the above activities not once did the MSM kvell.
Like a lot of women with truly knockout bodies Giselle is horse faced.
I know man-boobs all too well. I have quite a pair... those look like pecs to me. I'm impressed.
Interesting "hotness" discussion.
manssiere anyone?
Right now, Vlad is killing Barack in the Drudge bare-chested poll:
DRUDGE POLL}}}SHIRTLESS:
OBAMA
36% 20,017
PUTIN
64% 35,474
*************************
Hoosier Daddy said...
Interesting the way so many comments worry about a cult thing when in fact conservatives are so loonie about Ronnie and want his face on Mt Rushmore (or less).
Actually Reagan deserves his own mountain.
Only time will tell, Hoosier.
It could go the other way, too, where Reaganomics, "Trickledown", supply siders, dereg of free markets, and free trade philosophy are seen as the start of the present economic catastrophe. Of the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, the destruction of US industry and the dream of Reagan Democrats - the masses now reverting to being just Democrats.
In 20 years, even 10...it is possible that Reagan Airport will again be called National Airport and Reagan will be seen as another popular, but misguided President like Woodrow Wilson.
Even the "he won the Cold war" meme is being challenged...many believe that Eisenhower, the success of the modern European socialist state (The 3rd Way), the strategy of decolonialization and Nixon's detente and creation of global spheres of interest supplanting the bipolar world of 1945-71 are of more consequence.
Like a lot of women with truly knockout bodies Giselle is horse faced.
Yes, obviously Giselle is a "whole package" kind of pretty.
BUT I don't hear anyone looking at her and saying "Women who wear bathing suits like that should get capital punishment". I don't hear most men saying they wish she'd wear baggier swim clothes.
And look at her stomach in that picture - I guess some people like that, but I fail to see how malnourished is a sexy look.
Well that's par for the course for the supermodel look. Personally none of those chicks ever raised my temperature.
Cheerleaders and volleyball babes. Now that's what I'm talking about.
BUT I don't hear anyone looking at her and saying "Women who wear bathing suits like that should get capital punishment".
Yeah well Mrs. Hoosier is pretty harsh sometimes.
What can I say, you have to be that way to put up with me. ;-)
Tennis players.
It could go the other way, too, where Reaganomics, "Trickledown", supply siders, dereg of free markets, and free trade philosophy are seen as the start of the present economic catastrophe.
Or the Community Reinvestment Act and Gramm-Leach-Bliley which changed the rules between insurance and banks. I'll argue those had a lot more to do with it than trickle down.
Even the "he won the Cold war" meme is being challenged...many believe that Eisenhower, the success of the modern European socialist state (The 3rd Way), the strategy of decolonialization and Nixon's detente and creation of global spheres of interest supplanting the bipolar world of 1945-71 are of more consequence.
Sorry Cedar, it will take quite a bit of persuasion to convince me that any of that, particulaly decolonization led to the downfall of the USSR. If anything the post-colonial period was a boon for the commies.
What can I say, you have to be that way to put up with me. ;-)
:-)
It isn't just Mrs. Hoosier, though.
I think a scam has been pulled on women somewhere along the line, where "equality" somehow translated into women needing teeny bikini bodies while men got the cover of longer and longer swim trunks.
Tennis players.
Damn, you got me there. Love those skirts.
Simon, there's eight years of fanboy BDS context you could parse just as verbosely, but the nature of GOP BDS is that it is unaware of being GOP BDS (my apologies to Keirkegaard). If you want to juxtapose Putin and Obama without throwing in Reagan on horseback or Bush posed over a pile of brush, you're just confirming the usual GOP bias. And when called on it, you all sputter "but, but, but, but...this is DIFFERENT!" Pbffft.
Pics of Obama at the beach were posted back in August, at HuffPo. I even linked to them in your comment section of a post you were doing at the time.
Looks like some of the media got behind the times.
I think a scam has been pulled on women somewhere along the line, where "equality" somehow translated into women needing teeny bikini bodies while men got the cover of longer and longer swim trunks.
Well again I think women are to harsh in judging their appearence. Like the photo Simon linked, a lot of guys look at her think she needs to spend more time at the buffet line at Hardees.
Cedarford said...
"It could go the other way, too, where Reaganomics, "Trickledown", supply siders, dereg of free markets, and free trade philosophy are seen as the start of the present economic catastrophe."
Ignorance isn't now, never has been, nor ever will be a valid point of view, no matter how broadly-accepted. To blame the present "crisis" (if indeed it is such) on deregulation is about as monumentally pig-ignorant a thing that could be believed, requiring a complete failure to comprehend the structure of the markets that "melted down" and the regulatory regime in which they operated. You may be right that the American people will come to believe it, but that won't make it any less fictitious.
I'm so tired of Barak Obama, and the guy hasn't even been sworn in yet. I mean, it's exhausting just listen to the hype. It's like listen to the same top 40 song over and over and over and over. All I keep telling myself is that hoola hoops and yo-yos went out of style too, so this thing is finite and it'll pass too.
...women needing teeny bikini bodies...
Will Robert Crumb ever be given the credit he so richly deserves for combatting this impossible standard?!
Beth said...
"Simon, there's eight years of fanboy BDS context you could parse just as verbosely...."
Actually, I couldn't. Examples, please. Comparable examples, that is - when things are actually different, noting that they are different is a fair defense. (Setting aside the quibble about whether "BDS" can be used broadly to mean excessive emotion one ay or the other about Bush.) You bring up Reagan, but my perception is that his canonization didn't occur until he left office. Obama's began before he's even taken office; one can only hope that Darth Cheney's predecessor was correct: "twice the pride, double the fall."
Darcy said...
"Tennis players."
Absolutely, but that's a whole different frisson for me. :p That's an exception to my usual preferences.
Beth,
Your last post is overwrought nonsense. Reagan was a movie star and still was glamorous to a lot of people when he became president. He also saved people's lives when he was a lifeguard in his youth. To me, he was a mediocre actor and a great president. He formed the Screen Actors Guild at a time there was great suspicion of unions and he was a a two-term Governor of California during difficult times. Obama made it to the top because he looked the other way in a corrupt state and was otherwise very lucky. Let's see him do something before we talk about him in the same terms as Reagan.
All this discussion of manboobs, and not a word about how excessive use of marijuana will cause them...
At least they're not talking about whether his upper or lower body is the black half. Or are they?
I don't know what's more obnoxious. The press adulation of Obama on the beach, or the tripe Cedarford is peddling. I think there might be some redeeming qualities to showing Obama as a healthy looking male. Cedarford doesn't have that going for him.
I've seen man-boobs. Heck, I've HAD them.
Those aren't them. That's the kind of build my husband is working toward, and I'm encouraging him in that pursuit.
That said, I think this is the first time in my lifetime I've actually WANTED to see the POTUS-elect shirtless.
Do not forget Sarkozy! Vacationing at Bursh Sr's, love handles and all.
Look, not to be all snotty, but Barry O's pecs, aren't, uh, all that. They're much more, well, soft and puffy than cut. I'd call them an A-cup, not real pecs. Sorry, but I just don't want my prez to be putting soft little starter-titties up against Vlad The Impaler's hard 'roid look. So just keep 'em on, man. Jeez.
Look, not to be all snotty, but Barry O's pecs, aren't, uh, all that. They're much more, well, soft and puffy than cut. I'd call them an A-cup, not real pecs. Sorry, but I just don't want my prez to be putting soft little starter-titties up against Vlad The Impaler's hard 'roid look. So just keep 'em on, man. Jeez.
The mass in his pecs looks disproportionately large to the rest of his frame and he has no definition at all. The mass would usually indicate weightlifting but his boney shoulders and his stick arms, in addition to the absence of any cuts, clearly rules out iron. Moreover, the mass in his pecs is droopy and sagging, which suggests flab more than anything else. Then when you factor 20 years of smoking into the equation, it’s safe to guess that Obama’s pecs are in fact manboobs, to quote our esteemed hostess, that he has just recently shaped en petit during his daily workouts since the election.
If you put a gun to my head and make me choose between Obama and Hillary, then I’d say Hillary would kick his ass in heartbeat. Just ask Vince Foster.
Actually, I couldn't. Examples, please
I always think of this one, from John Buttrocket at Powerline:
"It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile."
MayBee said:
Thank goodness Matthew Brady never shot Lincoln in his bathing costume.
I'm a very, very bad commenter, but that line made me LOL.
Obama should keep his shirt on, while he looks fine (thin isn't my beefcake preference)it doesn't help his lack of presidential gravitas. The Mail has more comparison photos.
Does anyone else find it disturbing that the future leader of the free world is a metrosexual who shaves his chest? Good grief.
Garage, I suspect that Hinderaker wrote that with tongue partly in cheek, given that the very next sentence in the post whence that quote comes is "Hyperbolic? Well, maybe."
Serious question: why is it that commenters from the left are so unwilling to provide links? I see this all the time in comments, they'll say "oh, here's this awful thing that so and so said," and they never provide a link. Or if they give a link, it'll be to daily kos or mydd or some other drivel that doesn't link to the actual source either. You see the same thing with Youtube videos and blog posts - ThinkProgress is notorious for this - where they'll dowdify videos and quotes, taking a few lines that they've misread, stripping the context so that the reader is lead to misread them, too, and not bother to provide a link to the full text.
Sometimes it's obviously unintentional, and sometimes it's obviously deliberate. Usually it's somewhere in between, but whichever way, and although there's exceptions, of course, there's a deeper underlying problem. I suspect that the left has developed an internal norm of not linking to primary sources, and that's made it acceptable to repeat something without ever going back yourself. You're a smart chap, and I find it hard to believe that you would read JH's post and not see the humor in that first paragraph, made clear by the context; that leads me to wonder if the reason you didn't link was because you haven't read the original, and so hadn't seen the context? Isn't that a problem?
This is all a Crock.
Personally, I'm intrigued by a comment on HuffPo to the effect that Obama and the Mrs. were "taking the sun" on their Hawaiian vacation.
As in, "working on their tan"? So they'll look black enough for the inauguration or something?
The shirtless Obama vs shirtless Putin match up wherein Putin comes of as more manly isn't so much about the bod as it is that we know lurking behind Putin's sunglasses are the hard cold steely eyes of a man who would stop at nothing short of tearing off your head and s**ting down your neck.
Obama looks like a large adolescent on his way to a frat party or something. And those ARE man boobs. Too much shadowing under the cleavage.
Power is sexy.
As in, "working on their tan"? So they'll look black enough for the inauguration or something?
That comment was uncalled for.
Obama is not overweight at all. And those are pecs, not fat, but certainly from weight lifting and working in the gym, which means he spends time working them. Also, tall as he is, if he rolls his shoulders forward just a little bit, as thin, tall men tend to do, you get a little extra shadow.
Where's the other pic of him in Hawaii where he's reclining?
Not that it matters!
SK:
what the hell? i have seen lots and lots of man chests. there are a LARGE number of man chests that ARE NOT HAIRY (my boyfriend, for instance. he is 29. he has a whole 4 hairs on his chest. and looks like a mature adult male). jumping to the conclusion that Obama "shaves his chest" is freaking stupid - and calling that "metrosexual" when the popularity of shaving a chest comes from manly-testosterone-poisoned sports is downright idiotic.
Let's see him do something before we talk about him in the same terms as Reagan.
Thomas, have you missed the point of this thread? It's about image. Reagan on horseback at the Santa Barbara ranch, that sort of thing.
Simon, "Mission Accomplished" for one. How many times has Victoria swooned over the sock in W's pants in that picture? There's someone who posts here who uses the "W hugs a crying child" picture as his icon; that's another W fanboy photo-op. Don't shift the goal-line here: you compared Obama on the beach with the Putin photo - that's the criteria.
As for BDS swinging both ways, indeed it does. The ones yelling "BDS" everytime someone offered the mildest of critique's of this administration suffer from it the most.
Eww, Putin is pasty.
You might be surprised to know that hotness for most guys is defined a lot lower than you might think it is. Just watch Jerry Springer. Amazing how many men are jealous in love with fat women, to the point of being willing to kill.
Eww, Putin is pasty.
Don't go sayin' that in Russia, Amba!
Obama in shorts ... and no shirt.
haha, very funny
lacoste shirts
lacoste red
This is really funny he looks aladin not obama.I meet Obama personally wearing grey suit.
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