I realize that many of you don’t agree with me about this, but I really hate the media emphasis on whether or not Obama is a true, 11-dimensional Commander-in-Chief. As often as not, this type of coverage is ostensibly positive (“there are three dead Somali pirates who attest to this President’s ability to make tough decisions“). Obama’s handling of BudLightLimeGate is no exception. Steve Benen has a good run-down of the silliness:
Slate‘s John Dickerson said the McChrystal affair was “a test — more of a pop quiz, really — of Obama’s leadership skills” and the president “aced it.” Obama, Dickerson added, “was resolute and commanding.”
Time‘s Michael Crowley added, “The change of generals was the firm action of a hands-on executive. And a self-confident one, too.”
Even Josh Marshall, who’d said earlier in the day that he was surprised Obama “had it in him,” wrote last night, “When I woke up this morning I still couldn’t quite see how President Obama could not fire McChrystal. But I also couldn’t quite imagine him doing it. But he did. Showed me a different side of him. And what I really couldn’t have imagined was that he found a way not just to acquit himself honorably and protect the office but actually enhance his prestige and standing.”
If Obama were, I don’t know, being fed pro-war prayer cards by his domineering Secretary of Defense or letting his VP maintain man-sized safes of secret documents, then maybe it would be worth speculating if he was “man enough” to be president. But there’s been no evidence that Obama gets pushed around and it simply didn’t take that much cojones to fire McChrystal.
Svensker
Grammar nerd — is it “much cajones” or “many cajones”?
And, yes, what you said.
Steeplejack
@Svensker:
Grammar nerd, meet spelling nerd: it’s cojones.
ETA: And since cojones means balls, I think you would go with “much balls” (in the colloquial sense) rather than “many balls.”
licensed to kill time
@Svensker:
Technically, it would be “it simply didn’t take muchos cojones to fire McChrystal.”
thomas
only if he puts on a fighter pilot suit to show his junk
Pangloss
This recent flap with the military wouldn’t bother me so much if the emerging “stars” of the GOP weren’t starting to sound increasingly like Col. Jack D. Ripper.
El Cid
In other serious, well-thought out news, the America-hating GAO surrenders to their ACORN mob bosses.
Maybe those pimp video kids could fake a movie about the GAO running drugs or sacrificing infants on a stone altar and then Democrats could rush to accompany Republicans in voting to defund and decapitate the GAO.
After all, there are plenty nation-wide organizations with a developed history of defending the interests of lower-income communities and communities of color in housing and financial affair. The list goes on, pages and pages worth, I’m sure.
flukebucket
The nigga never ceases to amaze.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Considering what the Senate is doing, Obama is going to have to lay some serious smackdown on them. Ben Nelson wants to help the Republicans drive this country into the ditch.
El Cid
@Svensker: In simple translation I would think tan cojones, or gran cojones / cojones grandes, as in “such” or “big”. However, used literally, in many places this starts to mean “lazy”, as too large a set of cojones makes one a huevon, or lazy person.
ricky
@Svensker: @Steeplejack: @licensed to kill time:
General McCauliffe needed no qualifiers.
El Cid
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Someone do a quick check on how much money Nelson’s getting from the ditch lobby.
Max
I found it interesting on the PUMA blogs that they determined that Hillary is the one that gave Obama the idea and pushed him to fire MC Bud(Lime) Light and replace with Petraeus.
I really loathe those people.
Wordsmith
Many cojones…not much. or maybe a combination of the two mach cojones.
Mrs. Peel
Sorry, but 11 dimensional chess is still a game. Obama in his zeal to appear centrist and always defer to the right in the name of some sort of ‘bipartisanship’ has only given the both sides the impression that he’s insecure and easily intimidated.
Like it or not, that’s how it is. The press was scared shitless of BushCo. They do everything but tape “kick me” signs on Obama’s back without any sort of consequences.
Midnight Marauder
I am reminded of the discussion we had here a while back about the relative decline in the quality of TPM, and particularly, Josh Marshall’s performance during the White House Correspondents Dinner. You remember what I’m talking about:
The guy is becoming more and more Village with each passing day.
Violet
The press is full of types that seem to want a Daddy figure. That’s what this nonsense is about. However, in general it seems to me that most of America wants a Daddy figure as the head of state. What does that say about us?
For me, what made Obama’s actions here interesting were what Josh Marshall got at in his explanation:
Obama is a conciliator. He tries to find common ground. And while that’s great for most situations, it doesn’t work for every situation. People know that instinctively, even if they can’t articulate it. So when the punditocracy and Villagers are whining about whether Obama can be a “leader” and take decisive action, I think this is the issue that some of them really mean to be talking about. If the situation calls for swift, decisive action, can Obama do it? Or will he resort to conciliation?
It turns out he can do it. He did. The lazy media shorthand for it is “leadership.” All those other things he’s done are also “leadership,” but they’re not as dramatic as firing a high ranking general. And yeah, they don’t indulge the need for a strong authority figure that most of these pundits seem to need.
Zifnab
It’s sort of a self-serving backhanded compliment.
“I always thought Obama was a giant pussy. Now I guess he’s less of a giant pussy. Oh the fickleness of my all-important personal opinion, one can never expect how it will turn.”
But it’s better than spending a month discussing the merits of arugala and spicy Dijon mustard. So in the age of low media expectations, I’ll take it.
Svensker
@El Cid:
I don’t wanna think about tan cojones. No bathing suit and the pose necessary? Nah.
JGabriel
@El Cid:
None. The Ditch-Diggers lobby is pro-stimulus, been so since The Great Depression.
.
licensed to kill time
@El Cid:
Maybe cojones tan grandes “balls so big/huge” would be better, but English only readers might get lost which is why I said muchos cojones. Also, “cajones” are boxes, which is a whole ‘nother ball o’ wax, haha.
edit: the cajones part was for Svensker, I know you know the meaning…
Svensker
@Steeplejack:
Oh durn.
stuckinred
I thought it was huevos!
Bill H
“Commander in Chief” is a very small part of his job. How much time and energy, really, should he be devoting to being the head of the fucking military? How much of his attention should be directed to military function? Perhaps if he spent less time directing wars, being “Commander in Chief,” and more time being the “Chief Executive” of this nation, we would be a lot better off. Maybe the “health care reform” would have actually reformed health care delivery and would have contained a public option. Maybe we would have some real financial regulation. Maybe the MMS would have been reformed in time and sufficiently to have prevented Deepwater Horizon. Maybe a lot of things.
This nation is far to much about its fucking wars and its “Commander in Chief” and far too little about its people.
stuckinred
Via Huff Post
twiffer
this:
is completely meaningless. being “hands-on” and “self-confident” does not translate to being “good at your job”.
personally, i think obama is doing a good job. but not because he is hands-on and self-confident. those are annoying, idiotic buzzwords that serve only to make a company’s stock price rise (short-term, only, of course). sort of like “decisive”.
Frank Chow
Perhaps Obama needs to purchase a ranch and then take pictures of himself on a horse. He can then appear manly, resolute, but also as “one of them.” As we all know real presidents are faux cowboys.
stuckinred
@Bill H:
When we have people in the shit, as much time as it takes. You know that.
Svensker
@Frank Chow:
Yes, and so many Americans ride horses and live on ranches. In the Eastern Corridor where I and another eleventy billion Americans live, there must be at least 5 folks like that, so giddyup!
EconWatcher
Midnight Marauder:
Josh Marshal has shown the talents of both a perceptive commentator and an entrepreneur. With TPM, he helped invent a new business model for how investigative journalism and opinion could be funded and disseminated, and I think others will follow his path.
Problem is, he just isn’t very interesting or original any more. Hate to say it, but I think settling down and having a family has taken his edge off.
Bob
@Midnight Marauder: in
I missed that discussion but, for certain, TMP is in a ditch. Very sad. I thought it was just me, falling out of love.
Svensker
I really have to go do some work. But the in-laws are over sun-bathing in the backyard (“no, don’t bother about me at all, seriously just ignore me, get your work done…do you have any orange juice? What about lemons? Well, how about limes? No, seriously, just do your work. Do you have another beach towel…”) and it’s hard to concentrate. Everybody Loves Raymond is like a documentary on my life.
cleek
i get the feeling a few people here don’t know this, but a large percentage of Americans really don’t think Obama is tough, or smart, or competent. so, seeing that Obama can act decisively, even in the face of a big tough general is, literally, news to them.
licensed to kill time
@Svensker:
I hope they’re not trying to tan their cojones.
Frank Chow
@Svensker: http://www.uta.fi/~tommi.karra/demo/ranch.jpg in reference to this nonsense.
mr. whipple
@Bob:
My main beef is with the framing of the headlines, which can veer into Huffington-style hysteria/hype.
Bob
@Midnight Marauder: in
Jeez, John has a growing family. Ya don’t think…I don’t want to think about JC loosing his edge.
Allison W.
@Mrs. Peel:
Exactly what consequences should the free press face from the president? And are you advocating that Obama punish the press? Should that include the left wing media? How many times was W slammed for his treatment of the press?
And this crap is getting really tired. There are other people living in this country who don’t see everything as Left and Right. Any attempt to work with the GOP is an to appeal to moderates and independents and to people who actually want to see bipartisanship. Sometimes its because he can’t get the votes from members of his own party. Obama is not trying to get right wingers to like him – the left really needs to stop acting like a jealous girlfriend.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Anyone see Ambinder today? He says that McChrystal hated Faux Noise and is actually a liberal. Who woulda thunk it?
catclub
BJ must be getting lots of Beltway type visitors.
That would explain the Fighter Aircraft engine wars being brought here.
I thought that kind of ad was limited to the Washington Post.
Who knew the BJ readership was so influential?
stuckinred
@cleek: A large percentage of Americans have their heads so far up their asses that they don’t know if it’s day or night. What’s your point?
stuckinred
@catclub: It’s the state flag of Arizona. sheesh
catclub
@Svensker:
Bush didn’t ride no horses. There was some event with the president of Mexico which indicated he was scared of them.
Bob
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
It was very interesting, here is a link.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/06/mcchrystals-social-liberalism-and-the-integration-of-gays-in-the-military/58663/
Mrs. Peel
How many times was W slammed for his treatment of the press?
So? It didn’t change his treatment of them one damned bit. And they still toed what ever line they had forced on them. The press isn’t practicing any sort of noble profession. They’re just another group of over-paid corporate shills getting away with what they can. Just like everybody else. And like any out-of-control lapdog, they need to have their snout rapped when they’ve gone too far.
catclub
@stuckinred:
Now I know that posts available for editing can be seen by all.
I checked and deleted my comments vis-a-vis the flag.
Face
Also check his connections to the tow-truck industry.
slag
Hmmm…I’m with both Wordsmith and stuckinred on the cajones/huevos issue. This indecision me molesta.
And I both agree and disagree with DougJ on this:
Specifically, I agree that this narrative is silly, wrongheaded, and even detrimental.
But when I compare it to the alternative General-worshiping narratives they could just as easily be running with, I am pleased. At least the current story puts the President in command of the military rather than the other way around. An alloyed win, in my view.
Culture of Truth
Slate’s John Dickerson said the McChrystal affair was “a test—more of a pop quiz, really—of Obama’s leadership skills” and the president “aced it.” Obama, Dickerson added, “was resolute and commanding.”
And people say America is doomed.
cleek
@stuckinred:
positive portrayals have the potential to sway the opinions of poorly-informed people.
furthermore, why the fuck would people here complain about good press for Obama ?
stuckinred
@cleek: are you familiar with Roseanne Roseanna Danna?
Comrade Mary
@Bob: Here’s what I find even more interesting from the link:
Corner Stone
@Svensker:
Everybody here in Texas does. That’s how we’uns gets to school on them days what we ain’t in the field farmin’ nor ranchin’.
stuckinred
@catclub: Good work!
Corner Stone
@twiffer:
No, but they do speak to a really great handjob.
slag
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Also, I don’t think it. At least not to the extent that Ambinder claims. I think it’s a set up for when the General does find himself on Faux News as the “token liberal General” who happens to hate every decision the Democratic President makes from here on out. But maybe I’m wrong, and the General does have some integrity after all. Only time will tell.
Bob L
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: Calivin; there is a huge difference between Congress and the US Army. The Army is subordinate to the President. Congress is a separate branch of government. Complaining about Senator Nelson not doing as Obama says is like complaining about the SCOTUS not doing the same thing Obama says.
Corner Stone
@Bill H: Firebagger!…FIREBAGGER!!
Damn…that felt good. I need a ciggy.
Face
I strongly encourage the continued use of “Village” as an adjective. Perfect.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: It’s all based on what you’ve been browsing. I’ve been shopping engagement rings, so all my ads are from jewelry places.
Peter J
Do I have to show you a photo of Obama riding a bicyle? And isn’t this the more manly way to ride a bicycle?
Obviously how a person rides a bicycle is very important when you pick who you are going to vote for.
BTW, according to the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, Bush was scared of horses.
gwangung
@Comrade Mary:
Pretty much as I thought. The folks on the pointy end of the stick have their shit together, far more than the asshat leaders.
Corner Stone
@Allison W.:
I think this was more along the lines she was referring to:
Comrade Mary
Noooo!
HIS SADDLE IS TOO LOW! IT IS GIVING ME PAIN IN THE KNEES JUST TO WATCH HIM!
/sad former O-bot.
Patriot 3
@Svensker: That’s what Agent Orange said too before he lost his co-jones in the hcr battle of waterloo.
@catclub: Not only did W. not ride horses, W. was scared of horses. But to his credit, he could ride a bike. If Obama was scared of horses it would just be another element in Dan Issa’s upcoming impeachment effort.
geg6
@Allison W.:
Thank you. I had a righteous rant about the idiots on my own fucking team who have no more grasp of reality than a Teabagger convention all prepared in my head to type and you said it better, more concisely, and with less heat.
Steeplejack
@Svensker:
I hated that show because I hate the whole idea that anybody, even a family member, has the expectation, let alone the ability, to come into my home unannounced at any time. Ugh. I know it is a traditional sitcom device, but still . . .
cleek
@Comrade Mary:
his frame looks a little short, too. for me, anyway – i like to stretch out, long and low.
Frank Chow
@Peter J: LOL, love it. Bush rides a bike more manly! Obama wears mom jeans and throws left-handed! BTW our sarcasm level has just reach a terror threat of orange.
TuiMel
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Ben Nelson wants to help Republicans keep this country in the ditch into which they and glorious Dubya drove it.
Patriot 3
@Comrade Mary: http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06_16/obama_bike.jpg OMG. What’s next an electric chainsaw on a play ranch?
flukebucket
@Frank Chow:
Oh yeah. And cutting wood with a dull chain saw is always a winner with the small people.
stuckinred
@flukebucket: What motor?
Frank Chow
@flukebucket: Why don’t you chop wood in Wranglers on your day off?
slag
@Comrade Mary: I’m not sure raising the saddle would help much here. If it did go up to where it needs to be for his legs, he’d definitely want to raise his handlebars up too. But then he could easily end up with awkward steering leverage problems. I’m no expert, but I think cleek may be right in this being a frame dimensions problem.
Kerry Reid
@Mrs. Peel:
How, exactly, do you propose “rapping their snout?” Some kind of legal penalties that would be totally unconstitutional?
Obama has already taken heat from them for making his contempt of their 24-hour-news-cycle framing crystal clear.
I think he’s operating on the “you guys are gonna do what you’re gonna do regardless, and I’ve got important shit to do” theory.
More and more, what frustrates me with people who yammer about how Obama is losing the media game or whatever is that so many of them are the SAME ones who say “But he promised us change!” For me, someone who is trying to be a competent manager seriously interested in government, as opposed to cheap disgusting photo ops (“Mission Accomplished!”) IS a big change. He didn’t promise a leftie revolution — just a refocusing on the fact that government has a salutary role to play in its citizens’ lives. We can certainly argue over the details and merits of how he and this recalcitrant Congress have or have not played that role, but having a president who actually cares more about the job than getting fluffed by the press (and let’s not kid ourselves, Dubya hated them, too) is perzackly the kind of change I want to see.
kay
@Mrs. Peel:
I don’t see it like that. I think you give Bush (as an individual) far too much credit.
I always thought he was a member of the club in good standing. He’s a third generation politician. He comes from a powerful family, a family media are familiar with, and believe are natural heirs to any throne.
They liked him, and they were comfortable with him. They “knew” him.
I thought Carter, Clinton and Obama were outsiders. Clinton isn’t anymore: I don’t really know when he gained official entry, it wasn’t during his Presidency, but he did.
If you read Bill Clinton’s book that’s the whole subtext. He’s aware of, and alternately amused and offended by the fact that he wasn’t accepted, really, ever, when he tried to gain acceptance through achievement, in any elite club or group.
They liked Bush because they think he belonged in that chair, right from the start. There was never any question that he was a “leader”. It was assumed he would be, and they created the narrative despite him, not because of him.
They’re most comfortable with people they “know”.
That’s how I see it, anyway.
PeakVT
@Comrade Mary: He does look a tad awkward there, doesn’t he?
Which reminds me: the Tour de France starts in nine days. I wish I could look forward to it with more enthusiasm.
Comrade Mary
@slag and cleek: Yeah, I thought it might be the frame, too, but however it happens, the result is that he’s BENDING HIS LEGS LIKE FUCK even when the crank and pedal are at their lowest point.
I can forgive the jeans, the shoes, and the dorky excuse for a rear fender, but I cannot forgive the trashing of that lovely, athletic body. Gah!
slag
@kay:
I agree and think Clinton gained official entry when Hillary ran for Pres. Again, it was that sense of inevitability. She became the natural heir, and he gained entry by being part of that process.
Mrs. Peel
Getting a little overwrought aren’t we? Who’s claiming there should be legal penalties? Clearly you’re forgetting how fast Helen Thomas was relegated to the back row under Chimpie. Or how important access and saving face is to the inner circle mandarins when it’s threatened. That’s where your power lies. Legalities have nothing to do with it.
Svensker
@Steeplejack:
Waddya mean, “sitcom device”? You don’t have a family from the Mediterranean, do you?
MikeJ
@kay:
Once Clinton stopped all that silly “policy” and “good government” crap and started making money he became an ok guy. Sure, yeah, he still does some charity, but what rich guy doesn’t? He’s not doing policy, which is for dorks.
Carter is still an outsider, and it’s mainly because he went and set up The Carter Center, watching elections, doing policy. He wrote a few books, but as far as I know he’s not on any boards, he just hasn’t cashed in. So the media know he’s not one of them.
cleek
@Comrade Mary:
agreed.
and if only for style points, one must not ride a bike that does not fit.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Exactly. Somehow the rest of the country may have been fooled into thinking of Bush as some kind of “outsider,” but he was a Village insider from birth. He’s one of them.
That’s why the media constantly covered for him: not because they were afraid of him, but because he was their idiot nephew that everyone knows is a little “slow” and needs some help. David Broder has been covering politics in Washington for 50 years, including while Prescott Bush was in office. How long do you think he has personally known George W. Bush?
kay
@slag:
Right, and then the real affection for their daughter, Chelsea. Media actually circled the wagons around her. It’s downright ridiculous for a nearly 30 year old woman who is out campaigning every day to say “I refuse all interviews”, like she’s an 11 year old heading off to middle school, but Chelsea Clinton did that, and she got away with it.
I always wondered if some of that was guilt. They freaking savaged Hillary Clinton in the press, when she was First Lady. It was a feeding frenzy. I didn’t buy that she was treated unfairly as a candidate, but as a First Lady, it was ridiculously skewed against her.
They have this club,, it has rules, and we’re not in it :)
Obama isn’t either.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Mary:
I don’t think it’s a rear fender, I think it’s one of those kid trailers that helps your kid learn to ride a bike. I’m guessing it was probably Sasha’s at the time.
Comrade Mary
@Mnemosyne: Hmm. It might be that kind of attachment, but it also looks like those cheap mountain bike rear fenders that float 3 miles above your rear wheel. I obviously need to study more pictures of Obama on a bike to make sure.
Kerry Reid
@Mrs. Peel:
But I still maintain that being obsessed with the press is exactly the wrong game for Obama to play — it’s playing THEIR game, not his.
So again I ask — give me your specifics for how the press should be “rapped on the snout” — and why that is even a good place for Obama and his team to focus their energies in the first place. You brought it up, so one assumes you’ve thought this through.
flukebucket
If BoB was still around I am sure he would post this one again.
Good ‘ol “Flat Tire” Obama.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
A long time. Or known of him. I think, further, that media are uncomfortable with that, it goes against their romantic idea of “America”, meritocracy, so they completely ignored that he was the son of a President.
But, come on. Give me a break. Of course that mattered. It matters in their own profession, where nepotism is fucking rampant.
When they’re presented with real claw up from the bottom ambitious-types, like Clinton or Obama, they’re like “who the hell let him in here?” “He’s AMBITIOUS and GRASPING”. Well, no shit. He better be, or he wouldn’t be sitting there, with you-all guarding the gate.
Clinton had a sort of hazing. It was bizarre to watch. Now of course he’s this big international presence, but remember how they treated him? Like he parked the trailer out behind the White House.
Randy P
@Svensker: To get even more nerdy, as we use the word cojones in English it’s like “nerve”, as in “a lot of nerve”. I believe that class of word is called “uncountable” and so “many” would be wrong.
Re the McChrystal/Petraeus thing: I’ve been peeking into the CENTCOM website off and on the last couple of days. Their coverage is interesting, as in so far almost silent. And yesterday when all the civilian media was reporting that Obama had “fired” McChrystal and “replaced him with Petraeus”, the Centcom press release said that Obama had “accepted McChrystal’s resignation” and “suggested Petraeus as a replacement”.
Today, I can’t even find that article. There is not one thing I can find that mentions the change in command structure.
I’m not sure what to make of that.
slag
@kay: I agree for the most part. But I do think Hillary was treated to a nontrivial amount of sexism by the press. I don’t think it hurt her chances by any means. But it got pretty appalling at times. I was honestly surprised by some of it.
However, since Obama’s been President for over a year now, I’m surprised by absolutely nothing. These people may have gone to good schools and have gotten decent white collar jobs, but they still seem ignorant as fuck in so many ways. It almost defies reason. Unless you completely discount the myth of the meritocracy, of course. Which any rational person should by now.
Randy P
@Peter J: I was always amazed at how his handlers successfully conveyed the cowboy image despite the fact that his “ranch” was purchased as a prop for the presidential campaign and had no animals on it. His cowboy-ness consisted of driving a pickup truck while wearing a hat. And holding up a chainsaw for those brush-clearing photo-ops of course. I don’t know if he ever actually fired up that chainsaw.
geg6
@Kerry Reid:
I like your style and would love to subscribe to your newsletter.
Chuck Butcher
@cleek:
Harley-Davidson…
Like this?
FlipYrWhig
What annoys me about the coverage of this story is that it indicates, to spectacular effect, what the conventional wisdom would have been if Obama decided to keep McChrystal on. Weakness, indecision, dithering, etc. So the media is basically praising Obama for doing the thing he had to do to win their praise (while professing surprise, a particularly snippy touch). And it goes round and round and round.
slag
@Kerry Reid:
Interesting in that I was just discussing this issue last night with someone who was having his own problems changing the game at his own job. Obama’s obvious desire to change the game came up. It’s a learning opportunity in both the intent behind it and the failure of it. Because I do see this attempt by Obama to be a failure. At least in the short term. Whether it has long term positive impacts is another question.
Either there have been no changes to business as usual or they are so minute that I am unable to detect them. Every time I think there’s been something of a “gamechanger”, the next day I’m proven wrong. Inertia is a bitch.
kay
@slag:
I saw some of that, but it seemed more like general idiocy than sexism. I remember the comments on her dress, which were dumb and offensive, but that started to meld with what I thought were actual deficiencies in her management skills, so I was wary of ascribing all of it to sexism. I think that boomerangs and hurts women in general.
I guess my attitude was “first is always hardest”, just a fact of life, and Obama caught such shit for his “first” (and as we know, you can’t mention that when you’re the black candidate) that I felt as if it were “even”, in a way.
I would have been better able to parse sexism had I not been amazed and distracted at how rigidly conventional they are in general, to anyone even slightly outside the mold. I don’t know what they’d do with a genuinely unconventional person. They’d drop dead of outrage.
FlipYrWhig
@kay: My take on the media’s long-lasting Bush love is that they really did find him ridiculous but didn’t want to let on: because they’re always so afraid that Real America sees things differently than they do.
So they acted like Bush was wonderful because they figured The American People thought Bush was wonderful. They saw both Bush and The American People alike as dimwitted rubes — and have conditioned themselves to check the “dimwitted rubes” reaction the way a previous generation struggles to check its racism and other prejudices. So they hypercorrect. That way they can signal that they are in touch with The American People. David Brooks is the quintessence of that attitude, but I think it’s rampant: elitists holding public figures to faux populist standards lest they betray their own elitism.
Mike G
Obama refuses to make comic-book-stupid photo ops to demonstrate his ‘manliness’ because he’s not a stupid fratboy, so the lazy retards of the press don’t have a spoon-fed narrative to regurgitate.
If Obama would just strut around on a carrier deck wearing a flight suit like one of the Village People, the ‘manliness storyline crisis’ in the corporate media would be solved, and America would feel safe again.
FlipYrWhig
@FlipYrWhig: Or, to put it another way, most media figures seem to approach politics by seeing what happens, thinking, “How would a cartoon version of an American react to this?”, then evaluating how the politician could curry favor with the cartoonish Real American. That’s why the answer is always something like “Get tough” or “Show ’em who’s boss” or “Stop talking, start doing.” “Git ‘er dun,” I tellyawhut.
slag
@kay:
It’s so hard to tell any more. The topic of this very post seems inherently bound in sexism.
In some ways, I thought Hillary’s power plays were sexist in themselves. Her quien es mas macho foreign policy stance was an overt challenge to Obama’s masculinity. Which I don’t think hurt him. But rather, as you say, boomeranged back on women, in general. I enjoyed very few things about Hillary’s Presidential campaign, all in all. The sexism coming from the press was (and still is) just icing on the crap cake.
kay
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s great, and would explain the constant “Americans won’t like this, Obama!” and then two weeks later looking at polls to gauge reaction.
It happened again and again during Obama’s campaign (“can’t bowl: he’s screwed!”) but I thought it would end with the Presidency. It didn’t.
The debates were a great example of that in action. Obama “lost” those a lot. They so wanted America to like John McCain! They like him! What’s not to like?
maus
@thomas:
The media’d be talking about his “Dukakis moment”.
@Mike G: I love this shit, they don’t really know how to set a narrative because he’s not a legacy, he’s not a dumb fratboy, he doesn’t play the “cowboy maverick”, and he’s not the media’s depiction of a black male, neither Cosby nor gangsta nor Urkel. They talk a lot about *that* people love him, never really figuring out *why* people do.
kay
@slag:
I would have moments of real sympathy and connection with her. When she would sort of slump, exhausted, and underneath the campaign face she perfected she just didn’t give a shit anymore, because, really these are stupid people with stupid questions, and she knows a lot of stuff. I recognized that. I liked her best when her face would relax, and you sort of saw her.
I still watch for that, and she still does it. She’ll be on some panel or another, and she’ll just come out with some blunt, true statement. That’s her, as far as I’m concerned. It’s too bad she isn’t confident enough to be that person, but maybe that isn’t “allowed” within our screwed up political arena.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@slag: And a Clash reference. Well played, sir.
gwangung
@slag:
Well, that’s that point. Obama doesn’t play short term games, so it’s kinda irrelevant that anybody sees it as a failure in the short term.
Heh. That tends to make me think it’s a goddam success.
slag
@FlipYrWhig:
A lot of the behavior I see from them seems so unconscious that I really don’t think they did find Bush ridiculous. I really think they are the dimwitted rubes they take the rest of us for.
It’s almost bound to happen. You are exposed to so many different attitudes and people, and you have to try and see things from their perspectives that you are almost bound to lose your own in the process. Especially when you probably didn’t have that much of a perspective in the first place. Things that are bizarre or unseemly when looked at from a critical distance become the norm–the expected.
I’ve seen this happen to actors. It makes sense it would happen to journalists too. Their standards for normalcy aren’t just overcompensated for. They’re practically nonexistent.
El Cid
@maus: That’s another thing that pissed the fuck out of me. I thought Bush Jr. looked like a pathetic god-damn idiot in his flight suit Top Gun landing show but Chris Matthews is humping the table-leg over W’s package, and Captain Pretzel falls down on his bike-bike a lot, and, no, Dukakis looks ridiculous because he wore a helmet, and John Kerry’s a French long-faced fag because he went wind-surfing.
slag
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: That somebody got that makes me feel kind of weird. Almost as if I’ve accomplished something today. Disturbing.
El Cid
@slag: I’ve had jobs in which one of the bosses was an absolute dangerous jackass, but because that boss was all loudmouth and self-assured and macho and acted all commander-guy, coworkers admired and feared the shit out of him, until that boss was finally shown to just be fucking shit up. By that point, of course, no, nobody had ever admired him, they always thought he was a jerk, etc. and so forth.
El Cid
The ad at the bottom of the page tells me that Hillary is about to help the United Nations take all our gunz.
Svensker
@Mike G:
I dunno, O’d prolly come off looking like Mikey Dukakis. Personally, I think O is teh hawt but I’m not a Marlboro Man kinda girl.
Svensker
@maus:
OK OK sniped AGAIN!
slag
@gwangung:
And if we just wait long enough, the Iraq War will be considered a success.
slag
@El Cid: Precisely. But you need external measures. Some standards to tell you when “fucking shit up” is actually going on or has gone on. I think that, in business and in government, those standards can be very hard to come by.
Chuck Butcher
@slag:
This assertion never ceases to amaze me with its undemonstrated accuracy. That is not to say Obama doesn’t play long term as well, but it would demonstrate mind numbing stupidity to ignore the short term and Obama seems to pretty much miss stupid. There have certainly been plenty of examples of reactions to current events by the Administration that have reflected concern to immediacy. I’d be horrified by a Presidency that always had its eyes on the horizon and dealing with Congress would seem to me to dictate that the short game is important.
Corner Stone
@slag:
There was no halfway available for her in that category.
And they talked incessantly about her cleavage and her cankles and her pantsuits in ways that probably made “Earthtone Gore” blush.
There was no masking what they were doing.
El Cid
@slag: Okay, you “need external measures” to determine success or lack of success, but that goes both for people praising and for those being skeptical of macho loudmouths. And it isn’t always so difficult either in government or business when you’re close enough to see the evidence of fuckups major and minor right in front of view, problems unresolved, issues unaddressed, analyses fudged.
I’m suggesting that a lot of people, especially our billion dollar media, are power-worshiping shit-heads who wouldn’t know how to use an “external measure” to determine who deserved their leg-humping if a safe full of such measures fell on their heads.
I’m suggesting that they’re weak-minded pin-heads who use loudmouth bellicose macho behavior as their “external measure” of performance.
Sheila
I find it amusing that the media, who pretty much sit behind a desk or at a keyboard all day, are perpetually wondering about our President’s manhood. My question is: who is woman enough to be President of the United States? A pair of nurturing breasts would be a great asset for the most powerful leader in the world. Truth is, I think Obama outranked Hillary Clinton in this regard also.
twiffer
@Steeplejack: i hated that show because it wasn’t funny and all the characters were horrible, horrible people.
maus
@twiffer: At least Sunny in Philadelphia is funny.
Raymond is “that bitch the Mother In Law”, only the wacky twist is the horrible MIL is the man’s, not the wife’s. How progressive!
Svensker
@maus:
Again, you obviously don’t live in an Italian or Greek family. The MIL is not “horrible” or a “bitch” — that’s just how they are. You love them anyway. Or not…. :) And you either have to laugh or you’ll spend your life screaming and crying. Or getting a divorce.
Church Lady
@Corner Stone: Calling Al Gore, calling Al Gore…..
Sheila
@Mike G: Machismo is not a proof, but rather a perversion, of strength.
Elie
@cleek:
An unfortunate number of Americans think that a man is someone who yells at you until something is done.
Ever wonder why we have so many incidents of bullying in the schools? Because so many people make the false association with authoritarian coercion with somehow being the same as an adult in charge of themselves and the situation. They actually do not know the model of an actualized human being, having seen it so rarely in their lives…THAT is what is coming out here… Part of the sub story of the McChrystal story for me is that he was attempting to bully the President of the fucking U-nited States —
Obama represents at once an old time model of mature maleness (back in the days of civility and competence) and a new model (since its been so long since we have seen the old model in operation). I think he is making a lot of headway and is slowly bleeding some of the most extrement emotionality out of our public discourse. We are miles and miles away from having it all gone, but he is shifting it…
tomvox1
The most significant aspect of this story for me is the Rose Garden speech itself. I suggest that everyone here read it, even if you think the Afghanistan mission is completely FUBAR (which I sort of do). While so many on the Left are busy wishing Obama was LBJ (god forbid–did we forget Vietnam, people?) or FDR (that’d be swell but he ain’t), I think we should take him seriously when he says his role model is Lincoln.
Excerpts:
maus
@Svensker:
I was referring more to the bland, genericized fifties-style mother in law hate than any actual relatives.
Bill H
@stuckinred:
Well, my point is we should not have people “in the shit.” The wars we fight are entirely voluntary. We are not “defending ourselves against weapons of mass destruction” and we are not “denying them space in which to plan their attacks.”
My point that “This nation is too much about its fucking wars and not enough about its people” might have suggested that point.
Kerry Reid
I think the problem with trying to play the media’s game is that the goalposts are always shifting in that Three Little Bears way (too angry, too cool, too indecisive, too thuggish — whatever will gin up the outrage du jour and get some eyeballs on the screen). And of course, the main charge the media buffoons love to lob at Dems is “flip flopper,” so if Obama seems to be overtly changing his tune to please them, he’s doubly screwed. It’s like trying to date somebody who says “Well, I don’t love you YET, but if you’d only lose 20 pounds/quit smoking/stop talking to your family/whatever-the-hell, MAYBE I’ll reward you with my undying affection.”
No one wins by giving into that kind of crap. Which is why I maintain a certain kind of distant professional cordiality, measured with thoughtful doses of contempt when earned from time to time, is probably the correct way to handle the press until they collectively grow up (i.e., stop pining for the days when they could dance with their BFF Karl Rove at the Correspondents’ Dinner).
(I recall an early press conference where Obama was scolded for not responding to something-or-other in the prescribed 24-hour cycle and he replied that “I like to know what I’m talking about before issuing a statement” — a moment that Jon Stewart memorialized by looking at his watch and saying “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment to f-ck your mother.”)
I totally agree that most media folks in DC are obsessed with trying to channel “real America” — even though most of them couldn’t tell you what that means without stumbling over their own feet. Linda Ellerbee said the variant on the “little old lady from Dubuque” referenced by a New Yorker editor (William Shawn?) when she worked in network TV was “the plumber from Albuquerque.” Which, excepting Not-Joe Not-a-Plumber, is pretty insulting. As Ellerbee pointed out, at least the plumber from Albuquerque, unlike most network producers, keeps a job year in and year out and knows how to run a small business to boot.
And the main thing the media love to do is pretend that they have their finger on the pulse of the American public. Which is why they just knew we all wanted wall-to-wall coverage for a week in the middle of a historic election season about the tragic untimely death of the Most Important American Ever — Tim Russert.
Wile E. Quixote
I re-read the Rolling Stone article on McChrystal and again I’m struck by the fact that he comes off like a whining, petulant little bitch and his staff isn’t any better.