I said to Meade: "You know, there's a reason I created the 'Obama the Boyfriend' tag. How many times do you think I've used it?" He answered "5." I knew it was a lot more than that, but even I was surprised to see that the answer was: 54. Obama has been sold to us on this theme for a long, long time. The most recent post with the tag before yesterday's was "'You're so handsome that I can't speak properly.' Said to Barack Obama by Gwyneth Paltrow...."
But when did it start? Whose gush first pushed me to create the tag?
Maureen Dowd has boyfriend trouble.Absurd. And so mystifyingly anti-feminist. How did Barack Obama pull voters away from Hillary Clinton in 2008? You'd think that women would have felt a special attachment to the the woman on the verge of being the first woman President. There's a special attachment that is more special than the attachment of woman to woman: the boyfriend. What a deft political move for Obama! It was a fairytale romance.
"He was going to be the kind of guy who whipped you up and then, when you were all excited, left you flat, and then, when you were deflated and exasperated and time was running out, ensorcelled you again with some sparkly fairy dust."
As our old boyfriend declared — and it takes one to know one — it was "the biggest fairytale" he'd ever seen.
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70 comments:
Brrrr... When old boyfriend Bill did manage to bring the truth, he brought it cold.
Shocked there are no "Walker the boyfriend" tags.
Sad, isn't it? Women who should know better falling for that garbage. I guess "game" always wins in the end.
Simple fact is the only thing women love more than hating other women is subjugating men.
The only way to get women to vote for another woman is to frame it as a way to screw men out of money and power. Without naked sexism, women are WAY worse to other women than men ever will be.
There's a reason why the saying is, "Bros before hos," and why women do not have an equivalent saying.
In The Vagina as Fascist State etc etc etc.
Hitler never married so that German women had no competition for his affection. Notice how Michelle Obama has disappeared?
Hillary is more the ex-wife of American men than Obama is the boyfriend of American women.
Obama seemed more like the nice guy who stayed around and helped you raise the kids. But familiarity has bred contempt. He doesn't work as hard as he should (security moms) and keeps going through your emails.
"Shocked there are no "Walker the boyfriend" tags."
You must have a very emotionally unstable life, garage. How has Walker tried to present himself as a boyfriend? Where's the material?
Many of my "Obama the Boyfriend" posts are reactions to email that has been sent to me that full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama. It's embarrassing.
The tag wasn't created to reflect mere enthusiasm or excitement about Obama. Click on it and see. It's only for the weird presentation of the man as if he were a boyfriend.
I didn't create the tag until I had reason to think it was something that would continue to occur.
What in the Walker posts would be like that? Walker acts like an earnest man who's just trying to do what he believes is good. Maybe a "Walker the Boy Scout" tag could have been created, but Walker has never presented himself to us as boyfriend material.
Walker did wink at Meade that one time.
NY Times headline 2 years into the future: Hillary drops handkerchief for men in campaign swing.
'You're so handsome that I can't speak properly.' Said to Barack Obama by Gwyneth Paltrow. "You have the soul of Morgan Freeman, the calm of
Forest Whitaker and the charisma of Samuel L. Jackson. I have always been comfortable with the beauty of the noble black man, strong in a world that is always against them: when I was a little girl I had a crush on Jimmy 'J.J.' Walker."
Ann Althouse said...
Walker did wink at Meade that one time.
Was it the brotherhood of the bald spot?
Obama the gigolo.
Ann Althouse said...
Many of my "Obama the Boyfriend" posts are reactions to email that has been sent to me that full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama.
Could we see some examples of this?
Damn. I should've written 'the bedroom eye of Forest Whitaker' -- THAT would've been funny.
"Ensorcelled"! What pretentious prose. NYT hackery.
"Hitler never married so that German women had no competition for his affection."
True (except that he married on the very last day, which illustrates the point).
"Dietrich Eckart, twenty-one years older than Hitler, was often called the spiritual founder of National Socialism. A witty journalist, a mediocre poet and dramatist… He had returned to his native Bavaria at the war’s end and held forth before a circle of admirers at the Brennessel wine cellar in Schwabling, the artists’ quarter in Munich, preaching Aryan superiority and calling for the elimination of the Jews and the downfall of the “swine” in Berlin. “We need a fellow at the head,” Heiden, who was a working newspaperman in Munich at the time, quotes Eckart as declaiming to the habitues of the Brennessel wine cellar in 1919, “who can stand the sound of a machine gun. The rabble need to get fear into their pants. We can’t use an officer, because the people don’t respect them anymore. The best would be a worker who knows how to talk… He doesn’t need much brains… He must be a bachelor, then we’ll get the women.” What more natural than that the hard-drinking poet* should find in Adolf Hitler the very man he was looking for?""
Shirer, William (2011-10-23). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (p. 39). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.
Did Althouse just compare Obama to Hitler? I thought that was verboten.
"Could we see some examples of this?"
Here and here.
"Walker did wink at Meade that one time."
March 1, 2011. I remember every detail. The Democrats wore orange, I wore cheerful green.
Governor Walker wore leadership blue.
"Did Althouse just compare Obama to Hitler? I thought that was verboten."
No. Hitler stayed unmarried and it had to do with ideas of getting and exercising power.
Obama got married, perhaps in part because of ideas about how to get and exercise power. He's distinctly not like Hitler on this score.
Also, Obama did not grow facial hair or do anything at all to his hair as far as I know to try to seem more dashing and romantic.
Obama is different from Hitler it's not even funny. As if it ever could be funny. Somebody being like Hitler.
Just for the record, I know you didn't.
Obama is far above Corporal Adolph in his seduction skills. Obama uses far more than mind sex such as the entertainer Prince uses.
Obama is more a master chess player aiming several moves ahead while he carefully portrays himself as a loving black man hero figure.
Obama's trouble is that the chess board is down to its final moves now and all can see that they have been had by a master player...and Obama laughs.
"I'm Governor Walker's boyfriend"
Last minute desperation ad from Burke campaign.
Coming soon.
I just the boyfriend peddling the same old equal pay for women and birth control in a Detroit campaign event where the Dem candidate is safe and 10 points ahead.. haha.
At some point, it is the stupid women who fall for it rather than him. At some point it is the stupid blacks who fall for the Dems than him. But we all pay for their stupidity.
I would love a total of how many threads mention or show that Walker as Hitler photo.
At least twice in the last week, how many times over the last three years?
Obama PR isn't the only thing that beats some things long past when they are dead.
But hey, that's just the dignified and welcoming Walker supporters bringing that up over and over again. I bet Vicki McKenna is going to be full of warm welcome on her shows later this week like side you are voting for.
I think you should blog the Vicki McKenna show on Weds and Thursday, see how it stands up to the idea of joining the reasonable and adult side.
"Obama PR isn't the only thing that beats some things long past when they are dead."
Long past dead? Oh, that that were true.
Ann Althouse said...
Here and here.
Both these emails were also sent to men. Although acceptance of homosexuality has increased in our community, I doubt that the average person feels that these emails cross the threshold implied by "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama".
"You must have a very emotionally unstable life, garage. "
Does anyone doubt this ?
Hitler was not the only one to adopt the bachelor role in politics.
"Once Mussolini was in power, Ida Dalser and her son were placed under surveillance by the police, and paper evidence of their relationship was tracked down to be destroyed by government agents."
She was probably murdered in an insane asylum and their son was similarly murdered in an asylum.
In an interesting parallel to the story of Abortion Barbie, Mussolini financed his early career with money from her beauty shop in Milan.
" I doubt that the average person feels that these emails cross the threshold implied by "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama".
I doubt "the average person" thinks just like the average Democrat.
Although acceptance of homosexuality has increased in our community, I doubt that the average person feels that these emails cross the threshold implied by "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama".
How did Provincetown vote in 2008 and 2012?
Also, consider that the letters and emails weren't out to garner votes as much as money.
You must have a very emotionally unstable life, garage. How has Walker tried to present himself as a boyfriend? Where's the material?
I just haven't seen you so devoted and weirdly protective of a politician as you are with Walker. He can do no wrong. Perfect in every way. That's a common thread with Walker supporters though. Undying devotion.
Garage, name one thing Walker has done right.
"You must have a very emotionally unstable life, garage. How has Walker tried to present himself as a boyfriend? Where's the material?
I just haven't seen you so devoted and weirdly protective of a politician as you are with Walker. He can do no wrong. Perfect in every way. That's a common thread with Walker supporters though. Undying devotion."
That Fen, he was a political and sociological genius.
What? No mention of Smartler Lil Lena? No discussion of "Obama the Boyfriend" is complete without mocking Nekid Lena and her "first time" fantasy! Of course, now that she has outed herself as more than a little creepy, she will probably get fewer shout-outs.
AReasonableMeltdown: "I doubt that the average person feels that these emails cross the threshold implied by "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama"."
LOL
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/lena-dunham-first-time-obama-voting-ad-_n_2023705.html
Where would anyone get the idea that an "obama the boyfriend" tag would be appropriate.
I mean, it's just so....inexplicable.
LOL
ARMeltdown never fails to fail.
'A Reasonable Man''s' whole shtick is to come in here and tell us what the mythical quorum of reasonable people believe. He's like a portable consensus on legs, an individualized man-size groupthink generator.
Hilarious, and sad.
Garage, name one thing Walker has done right
As in morally right? Or as in done well? Divide and conquer he's done spectacularly well. Evading criminal charges is another thing he has done well. He can also raise a lot of money.
garage: "As in morally right? Or as in done well?"
Unfortunately, you are in no position to judge either of those.
garage: "Divide and conquer he's done spectacularly well."
Says the party of "I won".
LOL
Garage continues (as he must apparently): "Evading criminal charges is another thing he has done well."
Innocent people usually do. What's a wonder is how garage has avoided criminal charges for his illicit activities in support of the dems.
garage continues: "He can also raise a lot of money."
Says the party of Barack "I don't need no campaign spending limits" obama (who raised more money than any other candidate in history (particularly from his crony capitalist pals on Wall Street)).
LOL
And garage effortlessly steps into the mousetrap set for him.
Absolutely hilarious. Don't you realize that people are asking you questions like that specifically to continue to out you as a total partisan hack?
You have no life.
My "favorite" obama fundraising tactic was the turning off of credit card checks which allowed foreigners to give money to baracky without any verification.
Which the lefties like garage loved loved loved.
TCom said...
'A Reasonable Man''s' whole shtick is to come in here and tell us what the mythical quorum of reasonable people believe.
To the extent that your complaint has any content it appears to be that I am unreasonably dismissive of the idea that Obama sent out emails "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with Obama" to large numbers of heterosexual men.
You may not be familiar with how the average heterosexual man thinks, but trust me we don't responds positively to sexual come-ons from other men.
You may not be familiar with how the average heterosexual man thinks, but trust me we don't responds positively to sexual come-ons from other men.
I didn't get the emails that Althouse got. Did you?
Yeah, well, MoDo...
chikelit: "I didn't get the emails that Althouse got. Did you?"
Irrelevant.
AReasonableMeltdown is here pretending that one of the primary themes dems have been using to reach out to single women doesn't really exist at all.
Of course, it's entirely possible ARMeltdown is not just feigning ignorance.
I'm afraid this round goes to ARM, on points. I also received those e-mails, because I had signed up for a free Obama bumper sticker. It is fairly clear that they did not make different appeals to men and women, and the fact that some of the e-mails were ostensibly from Mrs. Obama, inviting you to have dinner with her husband, tends to shoot down any idea of a flirtatious intent. I think ...
At the same time, the Democrats' decision to target single women as a voting demographic, with a male candidate, made the implication unavoidable. Particularly when the baubles he chose to dangle before them were -- birth control, and abortions! What kind of girl does he think you are? Well, I guess that's pretty obvious, isn't it? He's not down on one knee with a bouquet of roses.
Consider the date of Althouse's first use of the tag: 9/09. None of the commenters in that thread seemed to pick up the boyfriend meme then. This tells me that Obama's team wasn't using the boyfriend schtick in 2008. My recollection is that he was cast as a generic savior the first time around -- airbrushed with Shepard Fairey dust rather than Dowd's "fairy dust").
So what event or turn of events happened to bring out the fully blown character of POTUS as a boyfriend?
Timelines please!
"You may not be familiar with how the average heterosexual man thinks"
Ooh, are you being bigoted now?
I've been surrounded by straight men all my life. Trust me, I'm no stranger to how they think.
Only libtards are allowed to be bigots. Rule of Politics #34.
Apparently, AReasonableRetard is able to simultaneously believe Democrats have a state of the art campaign and voter outreach system, with all kinds of data, and computers, and number crunching...
And on the other hand, he thinks Democrats don't know enough to only send an email to women.
Laff.
"Fully blown character"
heh heh. Clinton was behind it?
"I'm afraid this round goes to ARM, on points. I also received those e-mails, because I had signed up for a free Obama bumper sticker. It is fairly clear that they did not make different appeals to men and women"
This doesn't even matter, fool.
Look at the ads on TV. Ads on TV go to both sexes, yes?
Now, are you going to argue that Mark Uterus isn't focusing his ads on women?
Are you going to argue that the Lena Dunham 'your first time' ad wasn't gender targeted because men saw it on TV too?
Point destroyed. Boom. Next?
The simple fact is that as a party that largely caters to women over men, Democrat party messaging tends to lean towards...messages tailored for females.
Rocket science, I know. And just because some men got that email doesn't mean that it wasn't tailored for female consumption.
That's who they mainly focus on for votes, anyway.
" As if it ever could be funny. Somebody being like Hitler."
I had a Jewish friend with a black and white cat that had black markings on his white face that looked just like Hitler's famous hairline and mustache. The cat's name was...Hitler. Funny as hell.
The Girls voted for a sugar-daddy. The mistress angle was probably a motivator for not a few single, ambitious interns... I mean women.
Yes it's all so strange that Republicans think that the dems are targeting women.
Again, where do republicans get that idea?
http://news.yahoo.com/election-closes-obama-center-stage-101050657--election.html
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/sometimes-a-president-is-just-a-president/?_r=0 An article where we find that liberal woman were dreaming of having sex with Obama. Don't worry, I'm sure plenty of liberal men dreamed about it as well.
traditionalguy said...
Obama is far above Corporal Adolph in his seduction skills. Obama uses far more than mind sex such as the entertainer Prince uses.
Obama is more a master chess player aiming several moves ahead while he carefully portrays himself as a loving black man hero figure.
Obama's trouble is that the chess board is down to its final moves now and all can see that they have been had by a master player...and Obama laughs.
11/2/14, 8:53 AM
BetaMax 3000, is that you? LOL at this comment. I haven't heard the "Obama is playing three-dimensional chess while his opponents are playing checkers" meme in quite a little while. Probably because Obama has been pretty comprehensively exposed as a chump and weakling since going back to, let's just say, the Syrian Red Line. After which Mr. 3 Dimensional Chess Player attempted to assemble a coalition of allies to oust Assad, and his diplomatic skills put together a force which included Al-Qaeda and Iran and nobody else. Smrat Power!!! If we only wanted to tweak Little Barry and rub his nose in his failures, we could go all the way back to his arrogant attempt to land Chicago the Olympics in 2016- because it was his hometown! C'mon world, don't you want to honor me by having the Olympics at my house? More recently, let's just look at the upcoming midterm election where democrat party candidates are running from the dog-eater like he has ebola. Yeah, this dipshit is just a chess master- LOL! This chickenshit dork is playing tiddlywinks by himself and still losing.
TCom said...
"This doesn't even matter, fool.
Look at the ads on TV. Ads on TV go to both sexes, yes?"
I am often a fool, but not so foolish as to watch television.
I see your point, that the meme could be targeted at women, without any concern about its effect on men. But in that case, what's up with the e-mails from Michelle? Are they suggesting a threesome?
TCom said...
Look at the ads on TV. Ads on TV go to both sexes, yes?
There is a significant difference between sitting through an ad for some poorly defined feminine hygiene product and receiving emails "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with" with a large black man.
I would not call Obama "large".
Blogger Original Mike said...
'I would not call Obama "large".'
Yeah, and there are grounds for dispute about "black" and "man" as well.
Lauren Berlant, author of the book CRUEL OPTIMISM and several others, who has the blog Supervalent Thought, has referred to hope vested in Obama in terms of the inevitable letdown experienced when you have a "crush" on someone.
She's an interesting thinker, the most interesting I think I've run into in the realm of Queer Theory.
Jupiter said...
Blogger Original Mike said...
'I would not call Obama "large".'
Yeah, and there are grounds for dispute about "black" and "man" as well.
He works hard to appear unthreatening. He's 6'1".
His wife is taller...
chickelit said...
His wife is taller...
The 6 yr old next door is more threatening than this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGkPf9gZzM
Oh yeah, that 6'1" guy is soooo threatening.
LOL
AReasonableMeltdown: "There is a significant difference between sitting through an ad for some poorly defined feminine hygiene product and receiving emails "full of innuendo about a sexual relationship with" with a large black man."
Not from the mass marketers viewpoint.
Which is the point.
The female equivalent of "bros before hos" is "chicks before dicks" Birches.
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