That’s the only thing I could think of when I read this idiotic Kudlowism (via Oliver Willis):
Am I the only one who saw weakness when President Obama and his departing chief of staff Rahm Emanuel gave each other big, fat, full-bore hug following their speeches at the resignation event in the White House’s East Room on Friday?
[…..]Why not just a dignified, stand-up, serious handshake? That’s what Reagan would have done. A strong handshake shows friendship, respect, and even affection. But a big fat hug seems to go over the line.
Will this kind of thing ever end? Will our failed media ever stop talking about hugs versus handshakes, about presidents’ manly characteristic, about male presidential candidates “lactating”?
Dave
Yeah…and if Obama shook his hand Kudlow would say it was too “street” and why oh why isn’t there any humanity in the White House??!?
TooManyJens
No.
SATSQ.
They’re simply too stupid and lazy to talk about anything that actually matters.
mikefromArlington
Isn’t Kudlow gay?
trollhattan
Gawd, somebody else resurrecting Reagan’s now-quite-dessicated corpse to score a Big Point. Hasn’t about half the country’s population been born since he left office?
“Mistah we could use a man like Herbert Hoovah, again.”
noncarborundum
I still wish we could have seen Giuliani square off with Ahmedinejad in a street fight. That would have been like way cool.
Albatrossity
A manly hug…
El Tiburon
Cue the McCain hugging Bush picture please.
And for the love of God, can the right ever stop skull-fucking Reagan.
Talk about embarrassing man-love PDA.
KCinDC
Interesting he had to go back to Reagan because Bush clearly was a hugger (though of course no conservative ever imagined anything weak about that). But I imagine someone will be finding photos of Reagan hugs pretty soon.
Blotto von Bismarck
If Barack Obama insists on hugging, his advisers should encourage him to at least have the outside. Just as the President should be the one to terminate the hug, so America should be the only country to terminate relationships without repercussions.
I don’t like the handshake. It allows the recipient too much freedom. I think that Obama needs to greet each person by handcuffing them, to show them that he’s the one in control of the debate.
Jim Crozier
Why oh why didn’t he just settle for a terrorist fist bump instead?
El Cid
President Reagan would have slapped him heartily on the back, and Dick Cheney would come around the corner to shoot him in the face, and then stuff him in the man-sized safe.
TheStone333
Rahm would beat the shit out of Reagan. (And then tag Obama in for the elbow off the top turnbuckle.)
Erik Vanderhoff
@Jim Crozier: That would have been awesome. And then Rahm could have raised his fist high and yelled, “Jewish rage!” and then shot the correspondent from Fox News.
cleek
hug
and
hug
Ash Can
I saw this when someone — was it morzer? — commented on this in one of the morning threads. Kudlow’s a bloviating horse’s ass. In many of those foreign countries that he says were watching this display, a hug in this context would be quite restrained. This, however, would likely never occur to him, since all right-thinking people around the world must surely see things exactly the way he sees them.
Turgidson
@El Cid:
Win.
Martin
@El Tiburon:
No. Hugs are what gheys do. Skull fucking is seriously hetero.
Someone really should come up with a Fleshlight/Reagan head combo and put the ads in Google Ad rotation over at the wingnut sites. I mean, if we had to put up with 3-armed Pam, I think they could handle a Skull-fuck Reagan sex toy.
licensed to kill time
He shoulda smacked Rahm right in the kisser!
Zifnab
Oh sweet baby Jesus, do these people even have a gag reflex anymore? Just tattoo WWRD on your forehead and save the column space for someone with something to actually say.
Ash Can
@Martin:
I choose to believe that this was not a typo, and none of your so-called “facts” can dissuade me. So there.
jl
@cleek: But those were manly man hugs. And with weird aliens (pointy headed professors and presidents of foreign lands), where Reagan had to follow weird foreign protocols. Kind of like when Bush danced to savage drum music in Africa on a state visit.
And a handshake would have been stiff and weak, distant and cold, or as commenter above said, too ‘street’.
And a slap on the back would have been to casual, and demeaned the office, something fit only for sports bar.
Cheek kisses would have been too French. And a French kiss would have been… very interesting.
Probably an surprise Obama resignation would have been just the right touch, in fact, the only right thing, in Kudlow’s view.
Mr Furious
The bro-hug is the standard now and is perfectly acceptable, and it wasn’t even invented in the 80s…
I’m sure Biden was in the wings giving Rahm the double finger-guns and a wink. Is that okay with these fucking media jackasses?
Why don’t we dispense with the pretense of all of this shit being political analysis and just have Joan and Melissa Rivers cover the fucking White House from now on.
jl
How about giving Rahm a wedgie? That would work for several political factions.
Edit: “I’m sure Biden was in the wings giving Rahm the double finger-guns and a wink. Is that okay with these fucking media jackasses?”
No, that is definitely NOT OK. Hope they didn’t get pics, or there will be another scandal.
cleek
our friends and enemies who all live in countries where a male-male embrace is not considered the epitome of OMGwuttaFAGGort! ?
i’m pretty sure they were all like meh.
pRick Sanchez
WTF?
Kyle
I’ve found that the only men who should worry about whether something is manly enough are those men who worry about whether something is manly enough.
pRick Sanchez
Man, I love me some FYWP!
cleek
dignity!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mr Furious:
Because that would actually improve the quality of the analysis.
SpotWeld
I think the current crop of right-bloggers”…Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks. “
Wile E. Quixote
He should have given him a terrorist fist bump.
Arclite
What are the odds on Larry Kudlow having a Larry Craig incident over the next five years?
jl
Kudlow should try to get Obama on a small private boat, out in the water by a shoreline, of a lake, for a very private interview, Maybe Kudlow could get Obama to relax enough to explain his very unpresidential behavior.
Tonybrown74
These are the same people whose lips were all a-pucker at Commander Codpiece in his flight suit.
Apparently, worshipping GOP cock doesn’t make you gay …
jl
@SpotWeld: And I think that they will be angry if any should be so bold and rude as to write them down an ass.
Ossifer Kudberry, for example would be outraged to be writ down an ass, and rightfully so. Standards of civil behavior have fallen so low, you see.
morzer
@Ash Can:
Yes, it was me. And no, I didn’t get a DougJ reach-around either. Alas, the cruel fate of those of us who are not Jay Cutler!
John S.
In my household, we refer to it as humping Reagan’s corpse. YMMV.
Lukeness
I’m trying to find Kudlow’s comments on the lack of dignity of GWB on this occasion: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1022718/Pictured-The-moment-George-Bush-chest-bumps-airman.html
Can anyone help me?
djheru
Rahm reminds me of Al Pacino in the Devils Advocate
Allan
Fixed.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
I hug you in effigy every day Doug.
Don’t knock it.
Ash Can
@morzer: Don’t feel too bad. Jay Cutler didn’t get any reach-arounds last night, either.
FlipYrWhig
Psst! Mr. Kudlow! I heard some countries even have _girls_ running the government. Eeew!
GregB
I am outraged by the these faggy leftists and liberals and their touchy-feely-huggy-pauncy ways.
Signed, A Sturdy and Manly Conservative Man.*
*(Taps foot on restroom floor while texting underage pages and requesting them to measure their penii while they are on the way to get meth from from the gay hustler and adjusting the two dildos inside of the wetsuit.)
birthmarker
@cleek: Well worth the click, cleek, Exactly what I was thinking. Better a hug than kissing and holding hands like little girls. (No offense meant to little girls.)
BTW, a repeat from this morning–if you can give to John’s ActBlue page, do so soon so the candidates will have time to utilize the funds.
someguy
I for one am disappointed that this has taken us away from our politically vital discussion of Hillary Clinton’s hair, and Sarah Palin’s womb.
Tonal Crow
That’s just point-and-laugh stupid. Even below Dowd’s earth tones-level stupid.
The guy ought to be in a travelling freak-show.
Oh wait, he is.
birthmarker
@Lukeness: He looks pretty drunk.
@GregB: Bwahahahahaha!!!
daryljfontaine
It was lost in the wee hours of the early morning of the Open Thread, so I’ll just leave this video of Rahmbo and President Obama here.
D
morzer
@Ash Can:
*nods*
I think it’s fair to say he had a downer, and then another downer, and then another downer….
Zuzu's Petals
Again, have to wonder if he was troubled by the weakness displayed when GWB hugged his departing chief of staff.
Yep, really have to wonder.
West of the Cascades
And GW Bush kissing and holding hands with a Saudi prince is … what?
Maude
Ronald Reagan wouln’t have remembered who his chief of staff was.
WereBear
@Zuzu’s Petals: No, I bet he was untroubled, there.
morzer
All I can say is that we have to be very grateful that no-one ever saw Dubya and Lieberman smooching at the SOTU.. I mean, whatever would Osama have thought then?
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushliebermankiss.htm
themann1086
I literally cannot make fun of this. I’d call Poe’s Law if I didn’t know it was for real. We are so doomed.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@morzer:
Sorry! I couldn’t remember who pointed it out!
Cat Lady
@Lukeness: Gawd that idiot was such an embarassment to endure for so long in so many ways. I forgot about that one. My personal favorite. Imagine Obama being caught doing this. Fucking frat boy psychopath, but Obama hugged Rahm. I don’t know how Obama keeps from calling in an air strike on the DC press corpse.
Zuzu's Petals
@WereBear:
Looks like it was a big, fat, full-bore ‘un too.
r€nato
If Obama hugging Rahm emboldens the terrorists… I wonder what they thought when Bush actually held hands with a Saudi prince.
Don’t even get me started on how the constant parade of prominent Republican politicians caught having gay sex, makes the US look like a nation led by effeminate butt pirates…
El Cid
@Maude:
Reagan would have stepped off the plane in Bolivia, and welcomed him to Brazil.
AZERTY
Where were these sort of comments when Bush was photographed holding hands and walking with Saudi Prince Bandar?
Oh, right. Bush was macho–and had the packet to prove it–but Obama’s gay.
They’re so goddamned fixated on this shit, I’m really beginning to think they’re ALL gay.
Just Some Fuckhead
@AZERTY:
Did you mean “package”?
abscam
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sizewise, packet sounds about right.
Nutella
@Just Some Fuckhead:
A packet is a small package. I think @AZERTY’s meaning was clear.
kathequa
http://www.theonion.com/video/zombie-reagan-raised-from-grave-to-lead-gop,14385/
Michael G
The #kudlowstrength twitter tag is seeing a lot of hilarious action right now.
“Larry Kudlow punched my dad in the chest after heart surgery and told his heart to stop looking weak.”
“Larry Kudlow carries hot coals at all times to throw in the faces of crying people. He does this barehanded.”
“Kudlow is a beast. He can eat so much raw meat in one sitting that Chuck Norris’ Y chromosome prolapsed.”
Will
The first comment on Kudlow’s post:
Blotto von Bismarck
@El Cid:
Rahm had better fucking apologize afterwards, too!