Althouse: It's the President's birthday!

August 4, 2010

It's the President's birthday!

He's 49, and having dinner with friends — no family — at a restaurant in Chicago.

42 comments:

David said...: Drudge like clip, Althouse. (Giggle.); 8/4/10, 9:50 PM
Palladian said...: He has friends?; 8/4/10, 10:03 PM
RuyDiaz said...: Hey, does Scarlett Johansson sings that song as well?

(Sorry.); 8/4/10, 10:05 PM
prairie wind said...: Palladian! Exactly what I was thinking. He's such a prick, I have trouble thinking anyone could really like him. Find him useful, maybe.; 8/4/10, 10:06 PM
lucid said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/4/10, 10:12 PM
lucid said...: He is a lot like Jimmy Carter.

Just imagine what a pompous dick he'll be as a one-term ex-president.

He won't play well when he is out of power.; 8/4/10, 10:13 PM
Methadras said...: Why isn't his family with him on his birthday? That's just weird.; 8/4/10, 10:28 PM
William said...: I'm of such an age that I will never learn the back story of the Clintons, Gores, and Obamas. One senses that the plaster images disguise any number of kinks and crevices....Gore really had me fooled. I thought that he was dull and predictable enough to have a happy marriage.; 8/4/10, 10:42 PM
Irene said...: Hmm. I thought Spiaggia was his favorite restaurant.; 8/4/10, 10:44 PM
knox said...: Hard to think of Obama as being fun to hang out with. But those View girls loved him, so what do I know?; 8/4/10, 10:46 PM
Synova said...: How did she do that to her hair?; 8/4/10, 10:52 PM
Irene said...: Synova, "AquaNet."; 8/4/10, 11:07 PM
reader_iam said...: Irene beat me to it.

But since I'm here, I'll say two other things:

1) I don't care at all about Pres. Obama's birthday or where or how he spends it, and (but?)

2) I've spent a number of various holidays not with my family, with regard to my birth family and with regard to the family my husband and I gave birth to.

So what? I can a recall a few friends being concerned about the holidays on which my own nuclear family has been apart, on occasion. Busybodies. Notably, we're still married. Most of the ones whom I recalling are not.

This is NOT to say that being apart is related to our still being together. (In fact, I'd say not, at least in terms of the "being apart part," though perhaps it does have something to do with how we've dealt with that and viewed such.) It is to say that separation at particular points in times deemed by others as so critical may not be so critical at all--in fact, that the most critical thing about it might be the busybody criticism about something that is no one else's business at all.

I mean, really, who cares? More important, why do those who do say they care...well, supposedly care?; 8/4/10, 11:49 PM
reader_iam said...: Now, if the point of the separation was supposed to downplay the whole issue of Obama's birth by indicating his birthday is irrelevant, that's a more interesting thing (though not *much* more, to me, anyway)--primarily because of the ham-handedness of it, the very hilarity of that notion, and who on earth wouldn't think it'd create more buzz than almost all other of the alternatives?

Regardless, really, a dumb non-real issue. November's approaching. It seems to me that everyone ought take care.; 8/4/10, 11:59 PM
reader_iam said...: Which, from what I can tell, across a whole swathe of issues, people really are not (taking care, that is). A risky game, all the way around, IMO, FWIW.; 8/5/10, 12:05 AM
Eric said...: I thought that he was dull and predictable enough to have a happy marriage.

Is that really what makes a happy marriage?; 8/5/10, 12:08 AM
reader_iam said...: Just to be clear: I don't think Obama's birth is much of an issue. I do get what, for example, what Mick keeps trying to say. Of course, he himself has provided the evidence that Obama is most likely a natural-born citizen, on account of the most likely explanation for a number of things (and on the basis of a particular fact which, so far, I've never seen reliably disputed, much less refuted).; 8/5/10, 1:01 AM
reader_iam said...: And so it goes.; 8/5/10, 1:09 AM
Skyler said...: I have no problem with the president eating each meal in a different city of our great nation every day of the week. I don't mind if he goes overseas from time to time to visit friendly and unfriendly nations. The more he travels and sees our country and the world, the better.

But I'll be hanged to know why we're paying for his wife to spend her little vacation in Spain with 60 hotel rooms. I'm sorry, but she wasn't elected. We give her a small salary and a small staff to do socializing, but that does not include taking a daugther and hundreds of others to an expensive hotel in southern Spain.

The nerve of these people. She doesn't even attempt to say it's related to national interests. I guess her daughter's birthday is now our interest.; 8/5/10, 1:12 AM
Methadras said...: Man, Marilyn was hot as hell.; 8/5/10, 1:25 AM
reader_iam said...: And just listen to that audience.; 8/5/10, 1:32 AM
Fen said...: Sidebets that:

1) That Aug 4th will become a national holiday? At least for federals.

2) That it will happen before Obama's death?

3) That DHOTUS will have the audacity to do it himself?; 8/5/10, 1:37 AM
reader_iam said...: Are you expressing pessimism, Fen? That you don't believe in the "take-back" ascendant arising? If so, why?; 8/5/10, 1:47 AM
ricpic said...: Never liked JFK. Relative to Eisenhower he was so callow. A kid really. All that Camelot crap. Never ceases to amaze...although it shouldn't, shouldn't amaze, the reverence there was for Kennedy. Still is. Cal Coolidge? A snigger.; 8/5/10, 2:00 AM
reader_iam said...: ricpic: JFK was a hawk. He was also a social conservative, society-wide speaking, if not so much in his personal life. And I think the evidence is sufficient to conclude that he believed in all of that, especially society-wide. Your problem with him is what, exactly? Especially given your reference to Eisenhower.; 8/5/10, 2:14 AM
Gahrie said...: For the first time ever, I feel a little sad For Pres. Obama.......; 8/5/10, 2:44 AM
MamaM said...: Hot? There are those who term this performance "sultry", but what I see and hear is the body of a woman and the voice of a little girl who was abandoned by her mentally ill mother, raised in a foster home, stuffed in a duffle bag at age 7 by her mom in an unsuccessful attempt to get her back, ordered back into her disturbed mother's care (only to see her mom forcibly removed and taken to State hospital several months later), made a ward of the state, sent at age 9 to the LA Orphans home followed by a series of foster homes where she was sexually abused/assaulted before she was 12 by two male perpetrators, one a foster father. Yes, she knew how to package and sell herself to an "appreciative audience"; she learned the hard way.; 8/5/10, 3:13 AM
Anonymous said...: We have no proof that it actually is the presidents birthday....none.; 8/5/10, 6:21 AM
Unknown said...: As a rule, The Blonde doesn't resent sharing her birthday with other, but, in his case, she definitely makes an exception.

Methadras said...

Why isn't his family with him on his birthday? That's just weird.

Maybe Michelle has gotten as far as she can with him and is bailing like everybody else. If so, she's smarter and has more self-respect than Hillary.

Man, Marilyn was hot as hell.

She was on the downhill slide when that was done. Look at her circa '57. She really was something.; 8/5/10, 6:43 AM
Fen said...: Are you expressing pessimism, Fen? That you don't believe in the "take-back" ascendant arising?

No. Obama will lose the House, maybe the Senate. He'll spend the rest of his one term scapegoating Congress.

But, like Kennedy, Obama will be lionized. The Worst President Ever will become Myth simply because he is black.

Reminds me that, for all this bunk about "Camelot", Kennedy wasn't that great either.; 8/5/10, 6:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Organizing for America urged Obama supporters to take their cell phones to a local birthday event and call voters about the November election.; 8/5/10, 7:47 AM
Christopher in MA said...: Speaking of Marilyn (and, BTW, Peter Lawford, goofing on Marilyn's chronic tardiness, eerily - in retrospect - introduced her that night as 'the late Marilyn Monroe'), this was the stunt that pissed Twentieth Century-Fox off so much that they fired her. She'd been shooting "Something's Got to Give," her last film, and had been forbidden to fly out to JFKs gala. But she went anyway. The resultant kerfuffle didn't kill her, but it didn't help her state of mind.

And the less said about Black Narcissus, the better. But Fen's got it right on the nose - Obama could have been the greatest, bestest preznit EVAH if only that evil Bush hadn't screwed up the country. I guarantee it (as Men's Wearhouse would say).; 8/5/10, 7:53 AM
AllenS said...: Maybe Michelle has no idea of when or where he was born.; 8/5/10, 7:54 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Obama seems to be a cold, aloof person and now I'd even put him in the oddball class.; 8/5/10, 8:18 AM
bagoh20 said...: That helpless, available, sensuous character that Marilyn played so well has no parallel in the male. We don't have a persona we can adopt, at will, that intoxicates the opposite sex. Envy is what I feel. She was hot and it looks easy to do - a Quaalude and a martini.; 8/5/10, 8:25 AM
Clyde said...: I welcome the idea of Barack Obama spending his birthday in Chicago; so much so, in fact, that I hope that he spends ALL of them there, starting in 2013, and the rest of the year as well.; 8/5/10, 9:00 AM
Mick said...: reader_iam said...
"Just to be clear: I don't think Obama's birth is much of an issue. I do get what, for example, what Mick keeps trying to say. Of course, he himself has provided the evidence that Obama is most likely a natural-born citizen, on account of the most likely explanation for a number of things (and on the basis of a particular fact which, so far, I've never seen reliably disputed, much less refuted)."

I can't figure out what you are trying to say here. Obama has already admitted the FACT that makes him ineligible, no matter if born in the White House. His Kenyan father imparted British Citizenship upon him due to the British Nationality Act of 1948. Natural Born Citizens are born with singular citizenship because they are born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents. It was a security measure inserted in the eligibility requirements to ensure to the highest probability allegiance and attachment to the US in the CIC of the armed forces.
Laurence Tribe and Ted Olsen defined it as "one born within a nations territory AND ALLEGIANCE". If territory was enough, why would they have to say allegiance?; 8/5/10, 9:04 AM
Rialby said...: Wonder if Vera Baker showed?; 8/5/10, 9:33 AM
traditionalguy said...: Too bad about that snuff job on Marylin. She might have kept her mouth shut. But the Kennedys had to do what they had to do.; 8/5/10, 3:02 PM
jamboree said...: I get Marilyn Monroe generally, but not this video. It's buffoonish. It's painful to watch. She can't sing. Her hair is beginning to get that weird aging dried out look instead of the cute way it looked in her youth. While she is usually sexy, she's a sad caricature of a used up hooker here - kind of like Pam Anderson nowadays.; 8/7/10, 2:27 PM
jamboree said...: @bagoh20

You really wouldn't find it so liberating to be able to adopt that persona if you were female and didn't naturally have the inner qualities of a dried out hooker. You kinda need the huge boobs as well which you may or may not have.

You can, however, as a woman, dye or highlight your hair blonde and change your life instantly and forever - with one catch: You will always know it's not you, but a $10 bottle of hair dye that is causing the absolute woody idiocy (oh, sorry, "intoxication") you see around you. It might make you bitter.

Have fun.

PS: If you're decent looking with good hair, surf, play an instrument, and adopt the "Renaissance Man" bullshit pose, it works nearly as well on women.; 8/7/10, 2:34 PM
septbaby1958 said...: I want to say that I want to say that I think most negative comments regarding the President are because he isn't a White President. I feel this because there were lots of stupid things the former President(Bush) did, and I cannot recall this much negativity regarding Bush. I feel Americans should be fair and stop using derogatory remarks just because of the Presidents race. That is both unfair and childish. Obama should be given a chance just like Former President Bush was given two terms of chances. I think that fairness will get us far in this world. God gives us chances although we don't always do what He wants us to do. we hu; 8/12/10, 8:34 PM