While writing my reader's guide to Barack Obama's memoir, I had a moment of doubt. I thought I understood the basic thrust of the guy's life -- the need to define himself as black to acquire political power, because being seen as African-American would be hugely advantageous to the career of a quite white guy like Barry Soetoro. But what if this was all a smokescreen intended to distract from him being gay -- this would hardly be the first time in quasi-autobiographical literature. For example, Remembrance of Things Past makes more sense if you know that Proust, unlike his fictional stand-in, was gay.
I spent several hours thinking through everything I knew about Obama, talking it over with my wife. I came up with virtually no evidence, other than a lack of pre-Michelle girlfriends (he didn't meet Michelle until he was almost 28), except for one white serious girlfriend, whom he shoves away because she is white. My wife was even more convinced than I was that the Obama-is-gay theory was a dead-end.
But, it has lived on among people less informed about Obama's life.
Now, Vanity Fair is publishing an excerpt from David Maraniss' latest biography of Obama. It's pretty dull stuff, but it identifies by name two white girlfriends from his New York years, and includes diary excerpts and letters. David Remnick had earlier recounted that Obama had a white girlfriend in his later Chicago years, an anthropology grad student at the U. of Chicago (sounds pretty Freudian!). Obama admitted to Maraniss that the lone white girlfriend in Dreams from My Father is a composite of several.
So, Obama sounds like a fairly average heterosexual.
One thing that's clear from the article if you read it with a more hard-headed approach than Maraniss brings is that marrying Michelle instead of earlier white girlfirends was crucial to Obama's ambition to be a black politician. But, we already knew that.
Genevieve and Barack talked about race quite often, as part of his inner need to find a sense of belonging. She sympathized and encouraged his search for identity. If she felt like an outsider, he was a double outsider, racial and cross-cultural. He looked black, but was he? He confessed to her that at times “he felt like an imposter. Because he was so white. There was hardly a black bone in his body.” At some point that summer she realized that, “in his own quest to resolve his ambivalence about black and white, it became very, very clear to me that he needed to go black.”
By the way, I've long been fascinated by the questions raised by this picture:
What if second husband Lolo Soetoro had decided to insist, out of patriarchal amour propre, that Barry was his own biological son? Stranger things have happened in families. It would strike me that the difference in hair would be the main stumbling block to getting away with this. Say he then concocted a story to add plausibility to his claim to paternity that his family had some wooly-haired Papuan ancestors from West Irian in Indonesian New Guinea.
Assume the story worked and that Barry Soetoro, along with everybody at Punahou, believed he was just some kind of a funny looking white-East Asian-Melanesian mixed race kid. Would he be president today?
Of course not.
The career of a Barry Soetoro who didn't call himself black would probably have been a lot like that of his half-sister Maya, a semi-employed soft subject Ph.D.
Putting my reductionist hat on, we can conclude from the spectacular career of Barack Obama that in 21st century America, being black is highly advantageous, all else being equal. Sadly, acting black continues to correlate with self-destructiveness.
Putting my reductionist hat on, we can conclude from the spectacular career of Barack Obama that in 21st century America, being black is highly advantageous, all else being equal. Sadly, acting black continues to correlate with self-destructiveness.
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154 comments:
Interesting that both Barack and his sister Maya are professional minorities (=/= minority professionals). He played his black race card as a Chicago Pol, she's the "scholar-in-residence" at the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Program.
Combine minority father with radical leftist mother and I guess that's what ya get.
What will these people do when minorities are the majority and no one really gives a shit?
He sure gives off a gay vibe to me.
it identifies by name two white girlfriends from his New York years
If they counted as "girlfriends" then I'm a swinger. Because he went out with one of them exactly once. No word on whether they had sex, but it seems unlikely. That's a pretty "liberal" use of the term "girlfriend".
Sorry not buying the Vanity Fair info as plain truth. The diary excerpts read like fiction. Barry's letter excerpts - come on!
This guy Obama had to admit to using narcotics as a young man during the 2008 campaign. (Axelrod calculated correctly that the public was ready to accept a cocaine snorting prez, and that covering it up would be too risky) People who get involved with coke are the personality type who can lie about everything. It goes with the territory. More than any other coke is the drug of the fraud, the charlatan, the actor.
In his old age Obama will publicly admit to being a foreigner, a Muslim, a Marxist, a bisexual (strong preference for men). That will be his final spiking of the football.
I think it's just part of the way that people try to compensate for racism. Most white people have a negative unconscious bias towards black people. Most people try to be fair and correct for this to some degree.
But the truth is that this bias is most often expressed when someone is engaging in ambiguous behavior. (eg. rough play amongst black teens is seen as more dangerous than the same play amongst white teens). The bias is small when someone's behavior is exceptionally positive or exceptionally negative.
My theory is that the average person's "racism adjustment factor" is more constant. A constant adjustment is made if you are judging someone who is black. This constant will be an overadjustment for high achievers and an underadjustemnt for medium achievers.
If my theory is true, it would follow that being black is an advantage for exceptional people going for exceptional jobs (eg. president, high profile scientist or CEO). But being black would be a disadvantage for the mediocre going for more mundane jobs.
"
In his old age Obama will publicly admit to being a foreigner, a Muslim, a Marxist, a bisexual"
Hehehe, a Marxist, Muslim bisexual! That sure is an odd composite!
I don't care for Obama at all , but I never suspected him to be greeking it.
Assume the story worked and that Barry Soetoro, along with everybody at Punahou, believed he was just some kind of a funny looking white-East Asian-Melanesian mixed race kid. Would he be president today?
He probably would have been a high school social studies teacher. Maybe coach the JV basketball team as well.
The gay vibe comment is apt. The greatest living authority on homosexuality is Simon LeVay. He writes in his last book that gaydar is real. BTW he's gay. There are at least some studies that support the notion that you can spot homosexuality if the subject isn't trying to act one way or the other.
I don't actually believe that Obama is gay. But the gay charge is politically potent so expect a lot of gay jokes like all the doggie jokes we have enjoyed recently.
Obama makes himself vulnerable to gay charges with his prissy behavior. His dance with Ellen De Generis and his Al Green singing don't look real macho. I think some people call this being a metrosexual. Certainly tastes have changed. The top male movie star used to be John Wayne. Now it's Johnny Depp who secured the top spot at the box office by acting like a gay pirate.
Albertosaurus
In all seriousness, have you looked into the Man's Country stuff? Is there anything there, there?
Steve is so, so much smarter than his readers on this issue. While they see him as a dumb African socialist interloper, Steve pretty accurately recognizes Obama as what he is--basically a smart, middle class white guy with dark skin and an unusual life story who reinvented himself as a black guy for reasons of political opportunism and self-fulfillment.
This notion that he's gay/gayish is one I never understood myself, except under a super-etiolated definition of "gay" now in currency--dresses well; doesn't hit on women at bars; doesn't start fights at bars; etc. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to wonder if healthy husband-wife relations were not "modeled" for him (sorry, Lolo)
Me thinks one reason why Obama finally settled with a black woman is because he doesn't feel comfortable with people who are smarter than he is. He got into Harvard via Affirmative action while the three white girls got in by merit, so they could probably take him on intellectually. This was never the case with Michelle, who is dumb as a dodo. Obama may have gotten into Ivy League schools due to his race, but he does have real smarts. Michelle, no way! She was pure affirmative action baby all along.
One thing Obama shares with his white mother is the need to marry someone of less intellectual stature. Ann Dunham married some Indonesian guy she could push around, and Obama married a girl who could never match his wits on intellectual issues.
"in his own quest to resolve his ambivalence about black and white, it became very, very clear to me that he needed to go black.”
Interesting the way the Left chooses to play fast and loose with its definition of race, depending on what suits it:
1) "Race: it means everything, it's the essence of your identity, and the only way to get real diversity is to get people of different races. No matter if a black person was raised by white parents. Being physically, genetically black (or even half-black) is what matters."
2) "Race: it has no bearing on your outlook or attitudes or your abilities or propensity towards criminality. It's nothing, nada, meaningless. It's merely a social construct."
I don't know, Steve. He seems pretty gay to me.
What kind of straight guy would write something like the following to his girlfriend:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/05/barack-obamas-old-girlfriends-get-dishy.html
"I haven’t read “The Waste Land” for a year, and I never did bother to check all the footnotes. But I will hazard these statements — Eliot contains the same ecstatic vision which runs from Münzer to Yeats. However, he retains a grounding in the social reality/order of his time. Facing what he perceives as a choice between ecstatic chaos and lifeless mechanistic order, he accedes to maintaining a separation of asexual purity and brutal sexual reality. And he wears a stoical face before this. Read his essay on Tradition and the Individual Talent, as well as Four Quartets, when he’s less concerned with depicting moribund Europe, to catch a sense of what I speak. Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism — Eliot is of this type. Of course, the dichotomy he maintains is reactionary, but it’s due to a deep fatalism, not ignorance. (Counter him with Yeats or Pound, who, arising from the same milieu, opted to support Hitler and Mussolini.) And this fatalism is born out of the relation between fertility and death, which I touched on in my last letter — life feeds on itself. A fatalism I share with the western tradition at times. You seem surprised at Eliot’s irreconcilable ambivalence; don’t you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?"
ESPN fanatic, highly competitive recreational basketball player, and plays lots of golf, but mostly with low-level staffers, seldom with important people anymore.
Likewise, if he had been born, say, George Ramos, we'd probably have never heard of George Zimmerman.
But you know what I've always said about Barry: a white liberal living out the dream of actually being black.
My memory of Dreams is foggy, but I do recall feeling the part about his white girlfriend sounded scripted.
Let's see, his position in the white financial world was embellished to exaggerate the sacrifice of walking away and keeping it real. Now it seems his relationship with a wealthy white woman was embellished to, again, exaggerate his sacrifice. And of course, I don't remember if it was said, but I presumed it, because it fit the narrative, that she was beautiful. Besides, I doubt Michelle would have been satisfied with stealing him away from a Hillary Clinton. My mental image was a young Natalie Wood or Ali MAcGraw - a Hollywood version of Stanley.
People who can graduate mcl from HLS don't become high school teachers. Too many dumbasses here.
"What kind of straight guy would write something like the following to his girlfriend:"
Uh-oh, I hope none of my ex-girlfriends from my early 20s publish any of my more didactic letters to them on the subject of T.S. Eliot.
Putting my reductionist hat on, we can conclude from the spectacular career of Barack Obama that in 21st century America, being black is highly advantageous.
Really? Based on a sample of one person we can conclude that being black is highly advantageous? It's probably true that if Obama weren't black he wouldn't be president, but if the last 43 presidents before him weren't white, they wouldn't be president either. If being black is as advantageous as you guys keep insisting, then what's stopping you? Get some skin pigment medication or some dark makeup and dreadlocks or shaved head and go be black and see how far it takes you. There have been lots of blacks who have tried to bleach themselves white (even hyper-successful ones like Michael Jackson)but the reverse is much less common. That should tell you something.
BHO isn't gay. He's an introverted, somewhat intellectual metrosexual. But he probably has as little traditional masculine accomplishment under his belt as any president.
He was never in the military, never had more than a brief stint at manual labor, never ran a business, never did anything that required physical courage (Bill Clinton at least defended his mom from his trashy stepfather). For all of his sports-fanboy shtick, his athletic accomplishments are limited to having rode the pine. At a private school. In Hawaii. He's probably the only President who has never fired a gun.
A simple rule of thumb would be that, in many ways, Obama is a lot like me in personality, except with a giant urge to be powerful and celebrated rather than to think and say interesting insights.
Pastor Manning on "The Obama We Know"
"We know that he is legally, lawfully married to...Michelle 'the Fist Bumper' Obama. But what we don't know is any other woman on planet Earth that has had anything to do, in a romantic, dating, way -- with what is a 6'2, strapping, relatively handsome, well-spoken...Black man."
"You're telling me there is no woman on this planet who knows what Obama's kiss is like? ...Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot! There are men who have come forward. One is Donald Young and the other is Larry Sinclair. Oh! Now I get the picture! No women, but two men that have come forward, that have stated Obama's 'dating practices'. [Reggie Love, Obama's personal assistant is also implicated by Rev. Manning]."
Obama could be bi-sexual as he is bi-racial. A man for all seasons and reasons. Davos Man.
I read a passage of one of his letters and decided it was a compilation of sentences or paragraphs he plagiarized.
Why? The President who twice pronounced "corpsman" as "corpse man" is a guy who didn't write those letters.
The guy who worked in South Chicago and said he was a huge Sox fan while his wife was a huge Cub fan, then said he went to "Cominsky Field" regularly to root for those Sox is a guy who plucks facts and figures and words and phrases which he then inserts into what he considers to be appropriate places to use them, and often makes errors in so doing.
The guy is a fraud, no different from the entertainers Hollywood agents and publicists and studios create out of whole cloth.
To All Young Men Aspiring To Lead Public Lives,
Let Hallmark write your letters. You may write the greeting and the closing.
Original letters may only be written from a foxhole, while under fire.
Remember early in his first year in office when he and Sarkoszy were caught watching the shapely rear end of a young woman going up some stairs?
It was quite brief, not long enough to be rude, and he had no way of knowing the camera caught him.
Gay guys don't react that way to woman's rears.
I think the speculation that Obama is gay is largely because some people, for whatever reason, have a hard time believing that a tall good looking super-successful mixed race man like Obama could be genuinely attracted to a very black looking black woman like Michelle, when other mixed race good looking super successful men (Tiger Woods) pursue blond blue eyed women. I suspect that people suspect that a dark skinned black wife was a bit of a political prop, because black women were presumably impressed and grateful that a man who could have had any woman chose a woman so much blacker than himself, when successful black men typically do just the opposite.
"A simple rule of thumb would be that, in many ways, Obama is a lot like me in personality, except with a giant urge to be powerful and celebrated rather than to think and say interesting insights."
Saileritis: the psychological condition not uncommon among white males where the afflicted feels that everyone--e.g. Matthew Yglesias, David Brooks, Steve Pinker, etc--is reading his blog and/or that everyone--Amy Chua, Obama, etc--resembles him.
" Steve Sailer said...
A simple rule of thumb would be that, in many ways, Obama is a lot like me in personality, except with a giant urge to be powerful and celebrated rather than to think and say interesting insights."
Have a lot of pet cats?
It could be Obama's view of white women is clouded by his experience of his mother. Obama has conflicted about his ma cuz both are so much alike. She has a strong will and went off to do her own thing, and he had a strong will and went off to do his own thing. Such strong personalities, while alike, are incompatible.
So, maybe Obama saw his mother in the face of every overly intelligent and inquisitive white girl. And the fact that a white girl went for a black guy reminded him of how his white mother went for a black guy.
Obama didn't wanna end up with someone like his mother. He wanted to be leader married to a breeder. Though Michelle did have a career, it was in the shadow of her hubby's.
So, maybe there was some psychological satisfaction in his defeat of Hillary in 2008. She was like his mother: white, female, strong-willed, cold, and etc.
By beating Hillary, Obama finally felt like a man.
As I wrote in reply to a long-ago post of Steve's, Obama is well known in Norfolk, CT to have seriously dated a girl whose family have a house and deep ties there. Now we have confirmation in the VF excerpt, along with the woman's name.
Of course you can still date women and be gay, but as others here have said, he doesn't come off to me as gay. He strikes me as very much a type among Ivy-Leaguers: I should know, as I was pretty close to that type myself for a while. The Eliot fascination was one I shared with him, for example, and I'm sure I was a bore about it...though not I think as much of a bore as he was judging from that letter.
I know from experience that being able to quote good poetry from memory to Ivy-League chicks will often get you you in their pants, and fast. Sometimes it helps to follow one's enthusiasms, gay-seeming though they be.
And more or less in line with some other comments, I'd say the guy's pretty smart (ca. the +2 standard-deviation norm for really successful politicians), but not "brilliant," as he's often supposed to be by those who have a thing for him. Add some malleability in the race department plus the Lust for Glory, and you've got yourself a President.
Steve, why did Obama marry a woman who is neither pretty nor charming?
When I saw the headline "White g/f was a composite" I thought, makes sense, the guy himself is also a composite of 80s-90s media daydreams. But then I thought of the Carly Simon song "You're So Vain" the subject of which she initially had downplayed as a composite, until claiming otherwise proved more fruitful/lucrative. I can imagine it being sung to Barack by some modern-day Marilyn, maybe Christina Aguilera who did not know any Spanish until it was time to set up an ethnic/market identity. Sailer's wrong about the man's inner druthers or at least missing the point, since post-presidency Obama remains far too valuable to leave on a golf course somewhere. The forthcoming Obama Global Initiative will be driving Bill nuts 8 days a week.
catperson, you cite MJ of vitiligo-glove fame as your devastating counterexample of a black trying to be white? In service of your broader impression that white guys never try to act black, certainly not in front of a TV camera. Just how many cats reside in the house with you?
Steve,
On a previous thread, I mentioned that many of the people on my father's (German and WASP) side of the family never dated; just knew who the "one" would be. And my wilder relatives just could not wrap their heads around this. Some were even mildly repulsed.
Anyway, this caused much whispering behind the backs of the men in regards to their sexuality. One cousin in particular was tall, slender, extremely good-looking, religious (two uncles were Jesuit priests), Harvard grad... the works. He married after college to his only girlfriend and it flummoxed some of my relatives that, while single, he shrugged off interest from strange women.
This isn't strange for Harvard students as has been noted by the quants around here.
Half Sigma often says that when it comes to class we have 20/20 vision looking down, but blind looking up. It's true about more than just class.
Surely you've fired a gun, Steve.
"What kind of straight guy would write something like the following to his girlfriend:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/05/barack-obamas-old-girlfriends-get-dishy.html
"I haven’t read “The Waste Land” for a year, and I never did bother to check all the footnotes. But I will hazard these statements — Eliot contains the same ecstatic vision which runs from Münzer to Yeats. However, he retains a grounding in the social reality/order of his time. Facing what he perceives as a choice between ecstatic chaos and lifeless mechanistic order, he accedes to maintaining a separation of asexual purity and brutal sexual reality. And he wears a stoical face before this. Read his essay on Tradition and the Individual Talent, as well as Four Quartets, when he’s less concerned with depicting moribund Europe, to catch a sense of what I speak. Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism — Eliot is of this type. Of course, the dichotomy he maintains is reactionary, but it’s due to a deep fatalism, not ignorance. (Counter him with Yeats or Pound, who, arising from the same milieu, opted to support Hitler and Mussolini.) And this fatalism is born out of the relation between fertility and death, which I touched on in my last letter — life feeds on itself. A fatalism I share with the western tradition at times. You seem surprised at Eliot’s irreconcilable ambivalence; don’t you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?"
Bill Ayers?
Gilbert Pinfold.
Steve is so, so much smarter than his readers on this issue. While they see him as a dumb African socialist interloper, Steve pretty accurately recognizes Obama as what he is--basically a smart, middle class white guy with dark skin and an unusual life story who reinvented himself as a black guy for reasons of political opportunism and self-fulfillment.
I agree Steve is ahead of all commentators on this issue. However, I think it's even more complicated than you suggest. I've suggested in my previous comments that one of Obama's models was Michael Corleone. Like Michael, Obama is cool, self-possessed, and responsible. Michael did not chase after women like his knuckleheaded brother, Sonny. I think Obama learned that lesson well.
There is a difference, however, between Michael Corleone and Obama: Michael knew he could never be president because of his ethnicity and religion (remember the book and movie were both completed within 10 years of the Kennedy assassination. Puzo and Copolla were very fatalistic about the promise of America for the immigrant). No doubt Obama identified with Corleone's disillusionment. Obama obsessed over his father's race and immigrant status. But, at some point, Obama had a "aha moment." Obama realized, unlike Michael, he is a WASP. He could be the president because he's black and, most importantly, the right kind of white person. (Go here to hear Bill Clinton explain that Obama is a black man acceptable to "upscale cultural liberals.")
In Puzo's world view, being the right kind of white person gets you into Harvard Law School and the CIA; being the wrong kind of white person gets you assassinated
But unlike "Girls", Obama went for diversity and made the fourth one black.
I agree with Steve. The gay explanation seems to me wrong. But I wouldn't be totally surprised if it turned out he was gay, either. It's not like there are no gay men who watch ESPN and like basketball. OTOH, especially considering the lengths Obama has gone to to identify with other black men, it wouldn't be surprising if ESPN and basketball were a type of aesthetic discipline.
His letter to his girlfriend on Eliot is very strange. It's like he has a tin ear for communicating with the fairer sex. You could claim his letter as Hal talking to Dave in 2001 and no one would blink. But again, that might not be gay so much as simply abnormal, marginally dysfunctional straight. I also made mistakes like this while communicating with women when I was younger.
But I will hazard these statements... ...to catch a sense of what I speak. Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than...
Not that smart, but way overrates himself and is totally self-absorbed. Quite boring. Please go away, Barry.
How did/does anyone think he was a great orator or brilliant politician. Simply not. As John Yoo points out, how many constitutional law professors don't publish?
there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism
...reads iSteve... (also, shouldn't it be "that I respect"? can never keep that straight...)
A fatalism I share with the western tradition at times.
...feels the drums pulling him back into the deepest jungle, just like he hated DWMs for imagining...
I don't know, Steve. He seems pretty gay to me.
What kind of straight guy would write something like the following to his girlfriend"
I think I could still dig up those emails my college boyfriend sent me while I was studying abroad in which he compared and contrasted Rimbaud and Blake while contemplating the ways in which these poets influenced our rock icons, and through them-us. Obviously, one can never know for sure, but he didn't seem gay to me.
"Really? Based on a sample of one person we can conclude that being black is highly advantageous? It's probably true that if Obama weren't black he wouldn't be president, but if the last 43 presidents before him weren't white, they wouldn't be president either."
She summed it up there Steve. I would say that being black is a sizeable, yet decreasing disadvantage to most people, and a advantage to a few. You folks live on a different planet.
"A simple rule of thumb would be that, in many ways, Obama is a lot like me in personality,"
The POTUS is alot like YOU?
Steve, the back-patting is going to cause the old shoulder injury to flare up.
"A simple rule of thumb would be that, in many ways, Obama is a lot like me in personality..."
He's entirely un-analytical. Has he taken a single science course since leaving Punahou; since whatever ruidmentary course was required to fulfill his general requirements at Occidental or Columbia? Has he ever once picked up a celebrated science text since graduation: Coming of Age in the Milky Way, A Brief History of Time, Chaos, or Before the Dawn?
He may have bought such a text, or read the book reviews, in order to impress people at cocktail parties or to look good on his bookshelf. But read such a text? Doubtful. Whatever you say against Mitt Romney - and there's lots to say against Mitt Romney - he's probably actually read a science book or two since finishing BYU & Harvard. Obama & Romney are both ambitious men driven by the need to impress people. Obama does it by sounding impressive. Romney does it by being reliable.
That photo is one of the creepiest. Junior looks drawn in and that everlasting smiley face he wears. Momma has fake long hair photoshopped in--easily visible. Poor job, like the fake birth certificate they put out last year that every expert panned as fake. It was so blatantly fake that I just accepted it as a "f@#k you." The press will protect us. Go away all ye who question the Great O.
I don't care if purple lips is gay. I just wish he'd go (safe&sound) away.
It is my understanding that Mr. Obama was born a few days before me in August, 1961. Observing this, I am humbled comparing his accomplishments to mine.
The discussion of hetero/gay, manly/fem is childish. Please consider that classification of sexual orientation or manly accomplishment is not simple in many cases and may not be relevant in this case.
We do not choose the leaders of similar character that were chosen by our ancestors, remote or recent, primarily because those brilliant leaders of long ago would not appear suitable to lead today.
Perhaps Mr. Obama chose to highlight the black in his background. Why should we care? Who among you has never embellished their record to gain advantage?
I do not approve of the record of Mr. Obama as President. In particular, I disapprove of his support of the use of torture and his decisions to continue the slaughter of innocents and American capital in Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not approve of the continued sacrifice of whatever productive citizens our nation has left to the cauldron of short-term gain and political expediency. But what does this have to do with sexual orientation or perceived manliness?
With respect to intelligence, moral caliber, devotion to duty, and any number of other relevant characteristics Mr. Obama is well within acceptable parameters for his office, given past Presidents and current Presidential hopefuls.
Mr. Obama has been Mr. President for almost four years. Criticize his record, not his childhood.
One has to look at the kinds of women he prefers and promotes in order to gain an understanding of the man himself: Kagan, Sotomayor, Napolitano, Corey, etc. All fag-hags. He picks for a wife a woman with bigger shoulders than he has.
There's something rattling around in that closet of his.
... about cocaine and its adherents.
There are no beer fiends or even heroine fiends. But there are coke fiends. Are they all liars? Seems like cocaine appeals to salesmen ..
I still think he's gay, in that here he is, the biggest Rockstar of them all, and not a SINGLE WOMAN is bragging ...
"I slept with Obama."
Not one. Not a single one. Who could use, some quick cash. Like oh say maybe $2 million from one of: The National Enquirer, the Daily Mail, TMZ, the Star, Radar Online, X11, etc. There's not ONE girl who suddenly would like money and attention and fame. On how she bagged the biggest celebrity on the planet.
Now, does that sound like anything suspicious to you? By contrast, even staid GWB, and the more raucous McCain, had women coming out of the woodwork retailing (to not much interest) various stories about how they were the President's girlfriend.
Where was this guy's girlfriend in High School? How come no one, not a one, can remember a woman around him at: Occidental, Columbia, or Harvard? Mr. Big Shot/Big Cheese? Even a beta male would have them, in HS and College.
As for liking ESPN, and golf, well that's not inconsistent with being gay. You could throw any number of openly gay celebrities out there who like that stuff. Obama certainly has a mincing manner, inconsistent with even metrosexual standards of masculinity. He certainly acts like he has something very secret to hide.
But to me, the key is the total lack of women who have come out and said they slept with him. This piece looks like ... DAMAGE CONTROL over the wildfire rumor that he's gay.
After all, Obama is still pretty much a blank slate, by his own admission. And his time in office has only further clouded any picture of Obama ... as a man. By this time in his first term (3 years) we had a good picture of Bush as a man, no question. Also Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, and LBJ. You'd have to go back to JFK to find either an inaccurate picture or nothing but fog.
"Obama is a lot like me in personality, except with a giant urge to be powerful and celebrated rather than to think and say interesting insights [and a lack of ability to say interesting things].
If Obama were white, he would have ended up as a partner at Sidley Austin. Maybe making 1-2 million a year by now.
Shiite, NR interviews Patkins.
Obama seems very much not-gay to me. He probably has a somewhat below average sex drive, and clearly has at least mildly depressive tendencies.
In general, from a UK perspective it seems notable that the incidence of male homosexuality in US politicians appears low. Here in London, a very high proportion of male politicians are homosexual, in all political parties - Ken Livingstone was accurate to say the Tories are 'riddled with gays', but so are Labour. And Labour gays are much more likely to live the promiscuous 'gay lifestyle', Tory gays tend more towards stable cohabitation. The Lib Dems attract transsexuals, bisexuals and other oddities too, so it's not so notable with them.
Lesbianism my contrast appears rather rare in British politics, whereas my impression is it may be rather more common in the US. Of course it is very common in the govt bureaucracy here, and I'm guessing that's true in the US too.
SPOILERS!!
The main character of the show in focus on isteve the past week, finds out that her boyfriend in college was a homo in the latest episode.
Since homo>black, expect the racism controversy to die off. Or if the homo guy wasn't represented rightly(I am too naive to understand such things), homophobia to be added.
Anon:
"So, maybe there was some psychological satisfaction in his defeat of Hillary in 2008. She was like his mother: white, female, strong-willed, cold, and etc.
By beating Hillary, Obama finally felt like a man."
Hm, I think there's a lot of truth in that. Obama displayed some personal animosity to white feminists during his election campaign; animosity that could have harmed his election chances and did cost him my wife's vote.
Anon:
" Anonymous said...
If Obama were white, he would have ended up as a partner at Sidley Austin. Maybe making 1-2 million a year by now."
This by contrast is very silly. A white man with Obama's temperament could never make it in a major US law firm. Even as a black AA hiree he would struggle - he is smart enough for an AA hiree, but he completely lacks the consistent drive/motivation needed by successful lawyers.
"The career of a Barry Soetoro who didn't call himself black would probably have been a lot like that of his half-sister Maya, a semi-employed soft subject Ph.D."
I think he could have made it as a minor academic despite lack of publishing, yes. A slight depressive cycle can be accommodated by the academic calendar (IME!). His skill at oratory would go down well in lectures, and he can do the deGaulle "I have understood you" trick, which is also useful - though I think he lacks a genuine interest in what other people are thinking, which is a disadvantage.
South Africa: The New Threat to Freedom
Mugabe redux
"Perhaps Mr. Obama chose to highlight the black in his background. Why should we care?"
Because highlighting the black in his background is to substitute an immutable and supposedly superficial characteristic, race, for a genuine accomplishment - successfully running a Fortune 500 company, or a state, or a cabinet department, or an army. It's also indicative of the kind of politics he plays, which is that of racial grievance.
Actually, other than genetically, the black in his background is completely fabricated. He had no relationship with his black father, and was never raised by any black person, man or woman. Not so much as a black nanny. To highlight blackness which is merely genetic is to suggest that genetics matter. To liberals, it supposedly doesn't.
"I do not approve of the record of Mr. Obama as President...I do not approve of the continued sacrifice of whatever productive citizens our nation has left to the cauldron of short-term gain and political expediency."
Nor do I. Nor do must of us here. Not too many neocon war hawks in these here parts.
"With respect to intelligence, moral caliber, devotion to duty, and any number of other relevant characteristics Mr. Obama is well within acceptable parameters for his office, given past Presidents and current Presidential hopefuls."
No. He. Isn't.
Dang, hipster love be even bigger problem.
The Kar-TRASHIAN-ian family.
ZIONISTS OWN ALL.
http://rt.com/news/iran-oil-cyber-attack-795/
"My wife was even more convinced than I was that the Obama-is-gay theory was a dead-end."
Well, case closed!
The back-patting is getting to the point where it's both reductively feminine (Facebook Society 101), and para-masturbatory.
All in service to a deconstructive theory on Obama that has next to no evidence supporting it, and plenty going against it. Including the near-certainty that Ayers wrote [i]Dreams[/i].
You brag about your intellect, and evidently that is supposed to overcome your lack of ability to do real research on your subject, including your disinterest in studying a well-known author Obama was close with at the time he supposedly wrote [I]Dreams[/i].
This is the evidence of a great intellect? This, and one self-satisfied post after another about Tiger Moms and racial animus within dramadies for women?
Really shooting for the stars.
The HBD/Darwinian Atheist personality does tend towards the facile rather than the deep. When you come to create a religion around man-from/as-ape, I suppose the most logical route is debasement bordering on nihilism. And what better avenue than Modern Oprah Feminism for such an outlook?
You are entertaining, Sailer. But it isn't because your thoughts are unusually deep. Actually, it's because they so often aren't -- as with Obama, you aim so low and still manage to come up short.
"Momma has fake long hair photoshopped in--easily visible."
What's up with the hair? I never noticed that before. You can clearly see a short, tight head of hair surrounded by a long mane. Is it photoshop or something else?
Everyone likes White women.
He's not the least bit gay and straight men know this. Kinda makes you wonder....
Dan in DC
<1>But again, that might not be gay so much as simply abnormal, marginally dysfunctional straight....
Not that smart, but way overrates himself and is totally self-absorbed. Quite boring...
Describes perfectly the type I've ever met who wallows in Eliot: a bit off, insecure, obsessed with marginalia to compensate for an intelligence that isn't as high as he wishes it would be, bloodless.
I know from experience that being able to quote good poetry from memory to Ivy-League chicks will often get you you in their pants, and fast.
Y'all must have gone to a different Ivy League than I did.
'Cause in my Ivy League, y'all were known as "phags".
PS: The more I get around in life, the more I realize that there are just a STAGGERING number of married men who are secretly* bisexual [really homosexual] on the side.
At this point, if I had a dime for every married dude who has hit on me over the years, then I could pretty much give ol' Warren Buffet a run for his money.
*I always wonder how much the poor wives realize, or at least suspect - or maybe they're just clueless about it all?!?
I think I could still dig up those emails my college boyfriend sent me while I was studying abroad in which he compared and contrasted Rimbaud and Blake while contemplating the ways in which these poets influenced our rock icons, and through them-us. Obviously, one can never know for sure, but he didn't seem gay to me.
And yet you dropped him like a hot potato.
C'mon girl, you're supposed to be analytical here at iSteve.
Put on your thinking cap.
I never thought I'd see right wingers denounce Obama on the ground that he's no Bill Clinton. How can Obama be The President if he hasn't chased women down hotel hallways?
If Obama were white, he would have ended up as a partner at Sidley Austin. Maybe making 1-2 million a year by now.
If Obama were white, he'd have never left Hawaii.
He'd be the dude with a few semesters at the local UH branch, who never quite could finish his degree, and whom you could always find hanging out at the local watering holes, down by the beach, with a little too much time on his hands, and an eager willingness to partake of whatever drugs you had on you at the time.
For a while, everyone would just say, "Oh, his grandmother works in a bank", but after her death, when the money ran out, you'd see a line about him in the crime section of the local newspaper, having been busted for "solicitation" in a public men's room.
PS: In all seriousness, has anyone ever heard whether Obama can surf?
For that matter, can Obama even swim?!?
Sorry, but I still firmly believe Barry gets a taste of the strap-on from Michelle every night!
"Steve, why did Obama marry a woman who is neither pretty nor charming?"
It was an old school, political alliance. As Steve has posted before, Obama's main goal in life was to be mayor of Chicago. Michelle comes from a well to do, black South side of Chicago family, with deep ties to figures such as Jesse Jackson. Obama was a nobody in Chicago. With that in mind, she was the perfect person for him to marry.
"He sure gives off a gay vibe to me."
Most of the HLS guys are like that. He has solid white girl game, though. Read those love letters: Proust, Eliot, WTF. I can guarantee that the First Lady required a more direct, earthy and traditional bruthahs game. When you read the love letters you will understand why he slew the crew at HLS.
Re: Fanboy
Steve, go to any youth sports event and you'll find the biggest boosters and screamers are the people who never played. Same thing with fantasy leagues.
If Obama were white, he would have ended up as a partner at Sidley Austin. Maybe making 1-2 million a year by now.
On the contrary, big firms are DESPERATE for competent black lawyers who can safely be promoted to partner. Obama could be billing about 1200 hrs/year and spend the rest of his time playing golf and rainmaking. His wife and kids would be better-looking too.
He couldn't hack law practice--not even at a minimally competent level. In a sane polity, he'd be competing with Montel for a TV gig.
These women - if they did in fact exist - were girl friends, not girlfriends. I've known - probably most of us have - likely closeted gays who talk earnestly about Their Past Girlfriends, all the couply things they did and why of course it had to end (usually some drama on his part). One rarely gets to actually meet these women, of course.
Which is not to say that Obama is gay - more likely a fairly weedy default heterosexual who gets a bit of a thrill from robust masculine company (remember those pictures of him watching some martial arts demonstration on the White House lawn?).
As for his wife's attractiveness - she's no movie star but she's not nearly as unattractive as many people assert. It's hard to imagine her feeling much for her husband besides contempt, though.
Does Obama EVER talk about Soetoro? Possibly he does and I've just missed it, but as far as I can tell he gets less acknowledgement in the grand racial parable that is Obama's life story than does even Obama's vastly remote (and probably also fictitious) Oirish ancestor.
Is it photoshop or something else?
I always thought that Stanley Ann was wearing the Muslim veil [the "hijab"], and that they* scuzzied up the photo before release so that it could all be explained away as just "long hair".
*Axelrod et al.
How do most people here come to believe that Obama isn't smart enough to be a partner at a Wall Street firm?
"even staid GWB, and the more raucous McCain, had women coming out of the woodwork retailing (to not much interest) various stories about how they were the President's [sic for McCain] girlfriend"
I have no memories of these women at all. If they existed, they certainly (as you note) received no publicity. I would think any woman who explicitly claimed to have slept with George W. Bush would have received publicity simply on liberal-media "Look at those family values hypocrites" grounds. Even with Clinton, I can't remember anyone who claimed to be his pre-marital girlfriend, although I am sure there were many such. And wouldn't any MAN who claimed to have slept with Obama receive even more publicity?
I just gotta reiterate: Y'all's recollections of Ivy League chicks bear no resemblance whatsoever to my recollections of Ivy League chicks.
I doubt that even a young Hillary Rodham or Elena Kagan would have gotten wet-between-the-legs from talk of TS Eliot.
[Hell, when I was in the Ivy League, I didn't even know who TS Eliot was.]
Read Roissy - if there's one thing that he's nailed to the wall, it's that "game" works even better on Ivy League chicks than on Working Class chicks.
Working Class chicks can at least draw on the wisdom of Been There, Done That - in seeing through your bullshit for what it is - Ivy League chicks are just clueless.
[PS: If you follow that link, then you've gotta admit that Bristol & her boy are just gorgeous. What a fool Levi was to cut and run on an opportunity like that - what a damned fool.]
As the US beefs up its military presence in the Persian Gulf
anon:
" Anonymous said...
ZIONISTS OWN ALL.
5/3/12 12:49 AM"
From the link:
Pentagon strategists
"estimate that they would need less than a month to defeat Iranian forces should a military conflict take place.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) believes it can destroy or significantly degrade Iran's conventional armed forces in about three weeks using air and sea strikes, a defense source told The Washington Post."
What are they claiming? That they can launch cruise missiles and guided bombs unopposed at Iranian conventional forces, and do lots of damage in 3 weeks?! Of course they can - but what bloody good would that do?
Malaysia, multi-cult success?
@Simon in London:
"Lesbianism by contrast appears rather rare in British politics.."
Except in the Scottish Conservative party.
http://www.newcriterion.com/
Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer, Kramer,
I love how the iSteve commentariat argues for the primacy of genetics in determining intelligence while simultaneously trying to claim the magna cum laude HLS son of an anthropologist mother and a brilliant (if self-destructive) economist father somehow turned out to be dumb.
I bet homosexuals' "gaydar" is more accurate than heterosexuals'. (We need a study.) Has anyone asked a real player for his estimated chance of success at cruising this president, all other things being equal?
One of Ezra Pound's St. Elizabeths visitors, conspiracy maven Eustace Mullins, claimed that young college men during about 1930-50 successfully started romances with female students by memorizing and reciting "The Waste Land" to them.
Years ago I wrote a long paper on some literary topic for a chick to read - and got knocked back. But my ex, a hot blond, decided to marry me when she saw the stack of all the similar papers I'd written. Women are unpredictable, but that, of course, is old news.
You guys are overthinking motivations. He's a narcissist and I am not using the term loosely.
The successful narcissist (we must remember that many are not successful in any way in their attempts to fool people) knows he's not good at DOING and is actually quite upset at his inabilities to DO, but he is good at talking about doing. The successful narcissist is quite a good bs artist, a blatherer, and one way to spot him is to observe a particular air of confidence that comes over him when he is put in the positions of talking, in particular, talking about his accommplishments and goals. It's the one situation in which he feels truly potent as other endeavors have left him feeling impotent.
Good details here I haven't seen in other stories. Plus, a picture of O's gal.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/02/obama-girlfriend-revealed
Looks like one of those Liberal white women who find it so romantic to be with a black guy. Makes me puke, but hey, I'm a racis.
Idiot.
Trite.
"I know from experience that being able to quote good poetry from memory to Ivy-League chicks will often get you you in their pants, and fast. "
Very true. But the poem doesn't have to good either. Also you don't even have to understand the metaphor or conceit or references of the poem. Just have a certain delivery, like Richard Burton reading the phone book. Because all college students are dumb. It doesn't matter what school they go to.
Truth,
"She summed it up there Steve. I would say that being black is a sizeable, yet decreasing disadvantage to most people, and a advantage to a few. You folks live on a different planet."
Implicit in Steve's comment was "all else equal", i.e., taking two individuals with the same inherent gifts, if one is black he will have advantages in the US that a white or non-black minority wouldn't have. Hence the comparison with Obama's half-sister.
Steve,
Ever consider that obama wanted to be a politician more than he wanted to be black; that he wouldnt have cared about being black if he didn't want to be a politician; that his desire to be a man of POWER is what drove him into an identity crisis because he could never really be the white candidate and figured no one would ever understand him as the mulatto candidate, leaving selling himself as the black candidate the only option he could imagine?
If that is the actual cause and effect its not surprising he wouldn't be honest about it; much more compelling to talk about an identity crisis than a consuming desire for Power.
Also, the idea that Obama sounds like an average heterosexual male because he wrote that he dated fewer women than he did is really funny.
-Pat Casey
Obama isn't gay but can be gayish. But so was George W. Bush.
What will be NY Time's spin on this story? Uh... it's anti-immigration people's fault since it drove hapless victims to desperation.
I meant this story:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/petaluma-shooting-.html
Really? Based on a sample of one person we can conclude that being black is highly advantageous?
In a previous job, I went to lots of high-level meetings involving a particular federal agency that funded a big federal/state/local social program.
At those meetings, I met very smart white people, very smart black people, and just average black people. But never any just average white people. So, while being black may not be highly advantageous, being white can be highly disadvantageous if you are not above-average.
Blind person caught between US and China. A perfect metaphor! Also reminds me of John Woo's The Killer.
Truth:
I think that's about right. My guess is that the average black guy gets little benefit and some noticable amount of extra crap for being black. But it looks to me like there are substantial rewards to being black at the top of the intelligence/education/power/social class distribution, where you get into Harvard instead of Duke, where you're probably more heavily recruited for some jobs because you will make the racial numbers look better without hurting performance, etc. Clearly, Obama's political campaign benefitted from his race, though I think the benefit is easy to overstate. (Having the republicans completely discredit themselves before rhe election has to have helped a lot.)
I don't have numbers or darta here, and could be wrong, but there is nothing contradictory about being black, Jewish, gay, female, etc. being a benefit in some areas and a cost in others.
Obama makes himself vulnerable to gay charges with his prissy behavior.
Not to mention the very obvious bro-mance with Reggie Love.
The large number of comments about how talking about poetry is kinda faggy is just making me realize how thoroughly the idiocracy has already arrived.
highly competitive recreational basketball player
Steve, as probably the pre-eminient authority on pick-up ball with blacks (4 days a week '87-98), I have to tell you I've never seen BHO's body type in that milieu, let alone a 'competitive' guy. If there's a tall spindly black guy, which is exceedingly rare, he stays on the perimeter and doesn't mix it up.
Anonymous said...
"Momma has fake long hair photoshopped in--easily visible."
"What's up with the hair? I never noticed that before. You can clearly see a short, tight head of hair surrounded by a long mane. Is it photoshop or something else?"
I dunno man. See Martha Trowbridge for all that. Good read whether you believe it or not.
I always thought the Obama boy photos w/mom and the grandparents looked strange. Something just not right, like they're drawn in as cartoon characters. But the media ignored it and the years went on.
How anybody thinks the media is mean to Mr. B.O., I don't know. What this person gets away, NOBODY else would get away with in his position. For some reason, somebody with clout wanted him where he is because it's sure not anything to do with charisma (fake), or intellect (non-existent.) Certainly something to do with his race, but still...
Just tired of 'im now.
What kind of straight guy would write something like the following to his girlfriend?
His "girlfriend" is named "Alex"? That does not exactly refute the Gaybama theory.
"Genevieve and Barack talked about race quite often, as part of his inner need to find a sense of belonging."
I guess they didn't have time to talk about unimportant stuff.
Has two girlfriends (one date does not make her a girlfriend), and one extremely masculine wife. I know openly gay men who dated more women than that. One of those gay men lettered in basketball, coached golf, and is a sports fanatic never missing his teams on television. Looks to me like the 'proof' of Obama's heterosexuality is getting pretty thin.
His body language is extremely gay. Have you seen the pictures of guys practicing judo on the WH lawn? He's hiding behind Michelle. He's obviously gay and in the closet.
It only matters when you combine it with the rest of his 'Potemkin Village' of a life.
None of the women this supposedly normal hetero guy bagged have come forward? Men who are ambitious almost always have pretty strong sex drives. Some learn to control their impulses some don't but it's there.
I doubt it is Obama's dedication to traditional morals and fidelity that has kept women from showing up on the radar. He has terrible self control and cannot delay gratification at all.
He wants to play golf, he golfs, he wants to take drugs, he takes drugs, he wants to go on long expensive vacation while his country is in the toilet...well you get the picture.
He allowed his personal dislikes to sour a relationship with our staunchest ally. He flips off his opponents during televised debates.
If he were interested in women, he'd be getting some. Clinton is obviously a closet lesbian or bi even keeping her girlfriend on the payroll.
Why is it so hard for you to think Obama might be more gay or bi than straight? Michelle might be a convenient marriage to an influential black family. But damn, she is masculine. There were no feminine women who qualified?
He didn't date at all in the African pool until Michelle and he picks the one that looks like a linebacker?
None of this is normal. Not even near normal behavior.
Could it be that Blacks are less tolerant of homosexual behavior in men and he didn't want to lose his only reliable constituency?
TWS
I must be too high testosterone for Harvard
At this point, if I had a dime for every married dude who has hit on me over the years, then I could pretty much give ol' Warren Buffet a run for his money.
Steve has written about certain areas like Broadway that become really gay and that therefore straight guys avoid any association with it like the plague.
There's a similar thing increasingly with personal manners. Simply being friendly is increasingly being seen as gay. So straight guys are increasingly avoiding being friendly and trying to act tough all the time. It's like if you don't have a permanent scowl then you're suspect.
A white man with Obama's temperament could never make it in a major US law firm. Even as a black AA hiree he would struggle - he is smart enough for an AA hiree, but he completely lacks the consistent drive/motivation needed by successful lawyers.
The level of sheer looniness and delusion among isteve commenters never ceases to amaze. A guy who was Law Review at HLS, freakin' WON THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES, and has then managed a fairly disciplined administration, lacks consistent drive / motivation? This is even dumber than the way liberals used to dump on Bush.
'Cause in my Ivy League, y'all were known as "phags"...At this point, if I had a dime for every married dude who has hit on me over the years, then I could pretty much give ol' Warren Buffet a run for his money.
And here we have an interesting type, the flamboyantly heterosexual internet poster who is constantly getting hit on by men.
The 'gay' rumors on the right about Obama have a simple source...basically the right-wing demonology consists of the Gayz, the Mooslims, and the Commies. So the far right hatred of Obama means that he must be all three -- a gay muslim commie.
Speaking of women coming out of the woodwork, in 2008 I discovered some circumstantial evidence that an affair between one of the candidates and a minor celebrity (child and grandchild of major celebrities) had broken up the marriage of a moderate celebrity. Nobody, whatsoever, cared.
I want to second Pat Casey's comment:
Ever consider that obama wanted to be a politician more than he wanted to be black; that he wouldnt have cared about being black if he didn't want to be a politician; that his desire to be a man of POWER is what drove him into an identity crisis because he could never really be the white candidate and figured no one would ever understand him as the mulatto candidate, leaving selling himself as the black candidate the only option he could imagine?
If that is the actual cause and effect its not surprising he wouldn't be honest about it; much more compelling to talk about an identity crisis than a consuming desire for Power.
The rumor that Obama is gay got popularized by the "Hillbuzz" blog, which was founded by, and appears to be sometimes run by a gay political junkie/sensationalist from the "Boys' Town" neighborkood in Chicago. That's also the source of the rumors about Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel frequenting a gay bath house known as "Man's Country". But "Hillbuzz" has little credibility in such matters. It's a gossipy blog that delights in attributing closeted gayness to just about any man who's a public figure.
It doesn't much matter if he really IS gay. He's a public personality it only matters if he SEEMS gay. And it wouldn't even matter then except at this point in history being gay is a political liability.
The charge of homosexuality is potent politically. He gets political points now for his "lovely family". Even his supporters are likely to be too embarrassed to maintain that stance if he's revealed as gay. They would start to look a little creepy.
Michelle is not an attractive woman. The press keeps referring to her as attractive just as Jack Parr once referred to LBJ as handsome. The media don't speak "truth to power" about looks and never have.
Her skin is too dark - not so much for me as for other black women who prize light skin highly. She does not have a particularly feminine form. She's tall and muscular. If her picture gets into Sports Illustrated it will not be in the swimsuit issue. But her least attractive quality is her pushy personality.
Many have raised the question, "Why would such a man, a man with so many options, marry such a marginal woman"? The ideas that he's not really interested in girls provides an answer for some. I don't countenance such a speculation. I have a friend who is tall, blond and looks like Redford. He married a gargoyle.
There is an elaborate theory that she is a "beard" arranged by Jeremiah Wright to provide cover for those in his flock who are both black and gay. I don't have any way to know if such a thing is possible and I don't really care. But I like it as a rumor because it damages Obama politically.
In many ways it is better if Obama's sexual orientation remains mysterious and controversial. Before Clinton got caught with Lewinsky it was assumed that any politicians so caught would have to resign immediately. But we were all surprised. The Democratic establishment circled the wagons and defended him. We began to hear TV commentators say that it was "only sex". In a similar way if it came out conclusively that Obama is gay, we might expect spokesmen on the air saying that it was "only gay sex". Shapiro just wrote a book on Hollywood's championing of the gay agenda. There would be plenty of operatives ready to make that case.
The rumor is more corrosive to his reputation than the truth - whatever it may be.
I have a theory of homosexuality which I am actively promulgating. I post at least five blog comments a day on the T. Gondii theory. It is a testable hypothesis, maybe I can encourage someone with more resources to test it. I don't hate gays. I used to have several gay friends mostly through music. But they are all dead now from AIDS and other consequences of being gay. I think that's terrible. I oppose gay bashing and gay intolerance. It's a disease. I don't wish it on anyone - even Obama.
But I do think Obama should be defeated at the polls (and only that) and a sex scandal is a legitimate and time honored technique for influencing an election.
Obama loses support among women if he is suspected of being gay. Many on this blog have rather tender ideas about female sexuality. I was looking through the ads on a web dating site the other day. There was a promising ad in which a woman stated that she wanted to be spanked. But then I read she was looking for a black guy only. In my world this is fairly common. Many women dream of dark meat.
There are millions of female voters who fantasize about all sorts of nasty stuff being done to them by some black guy. The idea of a gay Obama dashes those fantasies.
BTW the only real way to determine if a man is gay is to measure the size of the INAH3 in his brain. This determination is not possible with current MRIs - not enough resolution. We can only know at autopsy. So we are very unlikely to ever get a definitive answer. His real sexual orientation will forever be masked and speculative.
Albertosaurus
Dear straight guy who claims to get hit on by gays all the time, I think I saw your Onion op-ed: http://www.theonion.com/articles/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock,11150/
As with just about all other purported historical documentation of this B.H. Obama fellow, we have absolutely no reason to believe these materials are authentic documents.
Give this operation credit! These people are professionals! Do you think they're physically incapable of fabricating purported historical documents, never given to anyone independent or hostile to examine? Or morally incapable? Or what? How hard does the Obama organization have to work to fool a Washington Post reporter? How hard did Chernenko have to work to fool Pravda?
I think it's clear that B.H. Obama is a man in late middle age of mixed African and Caucasian descent. As an adult, he spent some time in New York and later some more time in Chicago. Etc. He does have an actual biography, which perhaps one day will be much better known. But these are the only kinds of facts I'd dare to assume in investigating it.
Contra MQ, a lot of iSteve readers are remarkably gullible for people who know they live in a basically fraudulent information environment. Steve himself, of course, being pinned under his own gullible book.
Simply being friendly is increasingly being seen as gay.
BINGO.
My problem is that, as a Southerner, I have good manners, and am unfailingly polite, even to obviously "squishy" married dudes.
Which means that, invariably, they mistake my politeness as a green light for a "hit".
So straight guys are increasingly avoiding being friendly and trying to act tough all the time. It's like if you don't have a permanent scowl then you're suspect.
DOUBLE BINGO.
I don't even like to look guys in the eye anymore when I shake their hands - in fact, I routinely assume that some dude who persists in trying to make eye contact is at least bi.
Which, I know, drives the older guys [WWII, Korean War era] just nuts, because they think that "Men's Men" are supposed to make eye contact with one another, but it's yet another great tradition which is having to be flushed down the toilet that is the alter of Frankfurt School political correctness.
PS: If a guy like me ever met Obama, I can guaran-damn-tee you that he'd be all over me like white on rice [er, brown on whole grain rice?].
Get a load of this shit.
NORFOLK PAPER FIRES BACK IN BLACK-MOB ATTACK
'Why would I protect people who beat up 2 of my reporters?'
Uh.. because you're a dumbass liberal, just like the NY Times that covered up for Omar Thorton and the 20 black Texas rapists of the 11 yr old Hispanic girl.
Ohhh, so if a bunch of white thugs beat up two of its black reporters, the newspaper wouldn't have reported it for the sake of 'not playing favorites'? Gimme a break.
How do most people here come to believe that Obama isn't smart enough to be a partner at a Wall Street firm?
Familiarize yourself with the known non-Ayers/non-Favreau pieces in the Obama "corpus" - without his ghostwriters, the dude can't even get his nouns & verbs to agree with one another.
'Austerity' is necessary but it must be shared, or else, the Right falls and the Left rises again, as is happening in Europe.
Since a lot of the troubles owe not only to big government but to bankers and speculators, the only way austerity coulda been acceptable for many people if everyone pays the price. But what happened in Europe? Spending was cut for the little people but rich bankers all got bailed out and in some cases, rightwing government even cut taxes for the superrich. I mean WTF? Is the right this stupid?
Politics is largely psychology. Masses of people will accept austerity if the rich pay too, with higher taxes and with some going to jail. Yes, cut spending but also increase taxes on the superrich so that people all feel they're on the same boat.
But conservatives in EU and US wanna cut spending but bail out the superrich and lower their taxes!
What should be done is Raise taxes on the superrich and use the revenues to reduce the deficit; just don't use the money for 'more spending'.
As long as the superrich get hit too, the people will accept austerity as shared sacrifice. But when the superrich bankers, who pushed bad loans and spread the risk all around, are being bailed out and still raking in the dough, is it fair to push austerity on the masses?
MQ:
"The level of sheer looniness and delusion among isteve commenters never ceases to amaze. A guy who was Law Review at HLS, freakin' WON THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES, and has then managed a fairly disciplined administration, lacks consistent drive / motivation?"
Yes - he pretty clearly as up times and down times. He got to be editor of HLR, but didn't do anything as editor. He got to be President, but he hasn't done much as President - for which the world is thankful. He doesn't 'run a disciplined administration' - but he does pick reasonably competent people, whereas GW Bush got rid of all the people of competence (eg Ashcroft > Gonzalez). By historical standards Obama has had a mediocre third-quartile administration, it's just that's a huge step up from its bottom of the fourth quartile predecessor.
The point I was trying to make was that politicians, like academics, can often get by with somewhat bipolar personalities, though being all-energy all-the-time is certainly better. High grade Lawyers cannot, they need to be 'on' all the time. Obama is smart enough to be a commercial lawyer or investment banker, he might have got into Harvard Law without affirmative action, though he would not have been editor of the HLR. But his personality is ill-suited to corporate law.
@Mencius Moldbug:
Obama is "in late middle age" at 50?
I wonder why Barry wasn't sticking it to everything that moved? I'm surprised that between his mom's fever for the flava (probably because she choose to be different, rather than stuck with the type of white guy her looks would merit) and his dad's careless seed spreading, I'm surprised he didn't take a vow of chastity. His only reliable blood was conventional white granny. He didn't ask to be an oddity, it was inflicted on him.
I think his mating choice was pretty much HBD. Michelle is no flake, with her, their will be no impulse
junkets to save the world. He probably reasoned their kids will be black enough not to suffer an identity crisis (3/4 black kids are solidly black, 1/4 black kids are not solidly white). She'll pass on her long, strong athletic form and he'll contribute just enough white IQ.
It seems to have worked out. From pictures I've seen of Malia, she will probably be the best looking member of either family tree. Sasha, maybe she'll be the world's fastest woman (and Steve will write 124 posts about her.)
Poor countries have arranged marriages because it is too risky not to - who has a greater concern for you than your parents? Why would they choose poorly?
Barry basically arranged his own marriage, because his loser parents weren't there for him. I kind of admire the control he has of his appetites. The little frustration he has, and it doesn't seem like he has a lot, reveals itself in his smoking.
"Steve has written about certain areas like Broadway that become really gay and that therefore straight guys avoid any association with it like the plague."
The flip side to that is that there's a niche for talented straight Broadway actors, for straight/masculine roles. So someone like Adam Pascal (Roger in Rent, Radames in Aida, Huey Calhoun in Memphis, etc.) can write his own ticket.
Interestingly, while checking Pascal's page to confirm his heterosexuality, I learned that his father-in-law is a Nobel laureate and "Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School".
Albertosaurus & the BDSM again - LOL'ed.
Michelle is not unattractive. A bit too strong for white taste, kind of a black equivalent of Sigourney Weaver.
Obama learned early that any white woman craving a black man is probably a flake and a lousy mother, but he is sly enough to exploit that craving in his followers.
iPad sucks for comments, sorry about the typos, but I'm not leaving the sofa.
Michelle is not unattractive.
Many people think it's her height and musculature that make her masculine and/or unattractive, but I think that it's her protruding lower jaw, something that braces were unable to correct.
"Yes - he pretty clearly as up times and down times. He got to be editor of HLR, but didn't do anything as editor."
Yes, and from all biographers have been able to discover, he didn't have to anything to get the job as editor of HLR--just parrot the professors' words in class and be black and unobjectionable.
Mencius Moldbug was earlier promoting the theory that Obama never attended Columbia before throwing in the towel. And of course we went through a bunch of nonsense about his birth certificate earlier. It seems there is no possible evidence that will satisfy folks that Obama is who he appears to be, as if that wasn't bad enough!
"The 'gay' rumors on the right about Obama have a simple source...basically the right-wing demonology consists of the Gayz, the Mooslims, and the Commies. So the far right hatred of Obama means that he must be all three -- a gay muslim commie."
ooh, you know that's not true and I know that you have to say it but couldn't you find a more orignal enemy than that tired "right wing conspiracy." Too many left wing conspriacies to keep up with, much less right wing.
Flamer Larry Sinclair does not qualifiy. I believe he is the most salient source and provided details about the President's unmentionables which he sent to the White House by certified mail. Was it certified? The kind you sign for. And it was signed for.
So there.
The source did not come from the right or left. It came from outfield and the details involve a lot more than just what gender he'd rather snooker with.
He was a tubby little kid, wasn't he? I wonder if he took any ribbing for that then, and if it played into a desire to be and to remain thin.
Albertosaurus, go to Cochran's blog, West Hunter, and ask him about the likelihood that T. gondii is the cause.
At West Hunter, read his post ("Depths of Madness") of February 16, 2012 followed by his Feb. 22 ("Low Hanging Fruit").
I realize this line from his Feb 15, 2012 post,("Diamond on Domestication"), seems to indicate he might think the cause to be toxo--"In fact, it seems that toxoplasma-infected mice are sexually excited by cat urine. How weird – a parasite rechanneling sexual interest"--but I don't think he thinks that is the cause unless he's changed his mind from a few years ago. You'd find cysts.
I disagree with you that women would abandon Barry should they think him to be gay. The same progressive women who fancy him would be even keener on him were they able to add another progressive cause to their bonnets: "Oh, he had to overcome sooooo much, parental break-ups and a flakey mother, and being bi-racial, and then his sexuality...it's really our fault he had to be closeted."
Don't overestimate how liberal women and many moderates feel about Michelle. They don't like her. They pretend to like her. They don't mean it when they say she's attractive. They believe they have to say that. They wouldn't want to look like her, but they must never, ever intimate that.
Women would side with Obama, not Michelle, because women really hate other women in power or in competition with them. Yes, I know the "competition" is only symbolic, but that's how we women compete--symbolically, covertly.
Were he discoverd to be gay, I think a lot of women would come to his defense, thinking it's the liberal, the understanding, the kind thing to do.
BTW, I don't think he's gay, but he's not a player either.
"Obama is "in late middle age" at 50?"
When you're 50, you've got 30 more years to live, give or take. Unless you've got great genetics and have taken really good care of yourself, age 70 to 80 will be very difficult.
So yes, 50 is definitely late middle age. Are you just now figuring this out?
"I love how the iSteve commentariat argues for the primacy of genetics in determining intelligence while simultaneously trying to claim the magna cum laude HLS son of an anthropologist mother and a brilliant (if self-destructive) economist father somehow turned out to be dumb."
who claims this? his mom was smarter than average but hardly brilliant, and actually conducted her life like a very stupid person, even though she wasn't a moron or anything. his dad wasn't smart at all, and conducted his life like an actual moron. he was an affirmative action harvard student, like his son.
obama's illegal alien relatives in the US are actual morons, whose presence in the US continues only under the extreme levels (ridiculous levels i would argue) of favoritism extended to illegal aliens as well as africans in the "new" america. and a few of obama's half kenyan siblings actually live in huts in kenya. they sure do sound smart.
"The level of sheer looniness and delusion among isteve commenters never ceases to amaze. A guy who was Law Review at HLS,"
affirmative action. next you will tell me that eric holder, a racist and a poor lawyer, ascended to the rank of attorney general, the highest ranking lawyer in the united states, sheerly through merit.
"freakin' WON THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES,"
his jewish handlers, a media in the tank for a person like never before in the history of the US, and an army of idealistic, fresh faced euro americans organizing his campaign, are what won him the presidency. obama doesn't do that much. shows up for speeches, reads what somebody else wrote for him, uses his half african status as a suit of invincible armor to deflect all criticsm. it's easy to win when you can't be attacked for anything. the guy is an openly anti-american racist for crying out loud, but that's OK, because he's part african.
right now his jewish handlers are deciding how to campaign against mitt romney, but they already know which avenues of attack romney is not likely to pursue against them, because obama is half african, and he can't be criticised or attacked for plenty of things which a european man would instantly be disintigrated by in a presidential battle. this always makes things easier for obama. meanwhile, his army of fresh faced, delusionally idealistic euro american volunteers keeps his campaign train rolling along. that photo of his campaign headquarters which was featured in the media last month was awfully non-diverse. maybe they could hire one african guy by the summer?
"and has then managed a fairly disciplined administration, lacks consistent drive / motivation?"
one of the most scandal plagued, mismanaged administrations in US history.
and yes, he definitely lacks consistent drive and motivation. he works the least of any president ever. he prefers getting up late, staying up late, watching ESPN, sucking at basketball and golf, and taking vacations, over doing any actual work.
Anti-Gnostic:
Usually, you hear "middle aged" being used on people in their mid 50s or so, which is the height of optimism. Most of us probably won't be seeing 110.
Let me help with the concept of middle age. Most of the commenters are too young to really feel the weight of years.
Life expenctency in a meaningful sense is not really extending. Nor is it greater for women. Human beings live 70 years of active independent life. No more, no less. If you somethime in life wonder how long you have, the answer is 70. Women don't have more good years than men but they do have more years in which they hang on in a penumbra of life.
So if you are a man who works an office job, skis or golfs a little, and works on his car on weekends you can expect to be able to live that life until age 70. You might be technically alive at 100 but you won't have been living the same life you once did. You'll probably be in a nursing home and a wheelchair.
This idea that active life ends at 70 is not my own. It is an accepted figure among gerontologists.
Historically men always lived longer because childbirth was so dangerous. There were also much more infectious diseses until quite recently. Romans at the time of Christ had a life expectency of about 23 if you were a free man and only 17 if you were a slave. Those who lived in the countryside lived longer - probably 36. There were always people - mostly men - who lived much longer. Augustus like Ramesses II had a great personal political impact because they seemed immortal to their short lived subjects. For a normal citizen the king had been the king for their entire life and had also been king for all of their father's life.
But infant mortality would always keep the life expectency calculation down. Everywere in the world except a few central cities the life expectency was about 36 before modern medicine. Most of the jump up from 36 has been due to the control of infant mortaliity and some childhood diseases. Oddly enough curing a late onset disease doesn't effect life expectency that much.
People don't really come into their own until they are about 20. Before that you can be precocious and promising but you become a man with all your powers about age 20. So the math is simple. You have fifty years - 20 to 70. The mid point of that is 45.
Actuaries list 45 as being in your peak earning period. 45 is middle age.
Please don't write about how Pompey led legions at 17 or Narses at 80. Those cases are remembered because they are exceptions. Caesar or Gheghis Kahn were a more typical, they conquered the world as middle aded men.
Albertosaurus
Here's my two cents worth:
Have you ever noticed how Obama likes the office, but not the job? He likes being president, but doesn't like actually doing what presidents are required to do.
I think much the same can be said about his sex life. He likes being seen with the girl, but can't be bothered with the sex.
There's lots of significant figures in history with little or no libido, including George Washington, Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. Obama's sex drive is probably minimal.
This would also explain why he married Michelle apart from the obvious reasons of her critical (to his ambitions) family tree -- he's not really into doing (in every sense of the word) anything.
He just likes to cruise through life having everyone say how wonderful he is. The bigger the stage, the bigger the adoration.
That's really all there is, when it comes to Obama...
What's really interesting is how invested some people are in bringing up, then attacking the idea that Obama is dumb.
The only people objecting to claims that he's dumb, are also the only people bringing up the claim.
It's pretty odd. It's also odd how claims that he's not "brilliant" are strawman-ized into claims that he's "dumb." Kinda makes you wonder if maybe it's these obsessives who are the ones with cognition problems.
I read this boring comment thread a second time, just to make sure I hadn't missed the "dumb" thing.
5/2/12 6:28 PM
There's the first guy. He brought up the subject that he objects to.
5/2/12 7:00 PM
This guy isn't in the category, but he does seem to have "dumb" issues, and like to defend mediocre-at-best presidents. And he likes to generalize groups from one example.
5/3/12 7:07 AM
This guy is upset that anyone could think Obama isn't brilliant, but didn't actually accuse anyone of calling him "dumb," either.
5/3/12 8:45 AM
But this guy falls squarely in the cognitively-challenged, "ZOMG did you just callz Obama dumb?" category. Among others.
Then there's the guy who's astounded that people have their own opinions about Obama's drive and conscientiousness.
Michelle is not unattractive.
Woof.
"I think much the same can be said about his sex life. He likes being seen with the girl, but can't be bothered with the sex."
Barry has two kids. They look just like him; and you?
Neil Templeton said...
It is my understanding that Mr. Obama was born a few days before me in August, 1961. Observing this, I am humbled comparing his accomplishments to mine."
Well, he is in the White House so I see your point, but you don't need feel to "humbled." He didn't do it all by his lonesome, and for somebody with all the opportunities he has had handed to him, there wouldn't be anything for his posterity had his allies not planned and carried out his presidential bid, styrofoam pillars, crashed rock concernts, and ACORN thugs all in the billing.
A Harvard Law Review editor with no legal writings? A Univ. of Chicago professor whose colleagues are record as despising and considering him lazy and useless? A wife who was debarred from practicing law around 1993? Academic records, health records, vital statistics records, 23 social security numbers in Connecticut, a state he never lived in?
He has indeed gone high in life, but really. Pull up your socks and lift your chin. There are more worthy subjects for obsequiousness, even in your dreams.
Is democracy a suitable form of government for an Alpha male? Doesn't empire seem a more natural form, if we buy into the Alpha/Beta Theory. It is hard to get excited about limited powers and dams and bridges that aren't built.
Is there any evidence that Obama dated black women (other than MO)?
The stories from such a range of sources, especially the eyewitness vignettes you can find on Hillbuzz, prove what so many candid pics of obama seem to suggest.
I do not believe the people of "Man's Country," who tell of rahm's and obama's adventures, are lying. And in those odd candids, such as obama cringing from the manly martial arts demonstration or the so-close-we're-almost-touching-face pics of him with a few "buddies," Dear Leader definitely has a bad case of "gayface," as the Hillbuzz boys like to call it.
Truth asks:
Barry has two kids. They look just like him; and you?
OK, so he's had sex twice. I have three kids, does that mean I've had sex three times?
Obviously you haven't read Sailer's article or many of the comments on the thread. The question is why is there very little evidence of Obama having much in the way of girlfriends?
Some people here think he's gay. I think he's hetero and simply doesn't have much of a libido.
To return to one of my examples, most of Churchill's contemporaries thought he wasn't very interested in women and two of his biographers have said he had a low libido.
He also managed to produce five kids.
If it makes you feel better, I'm happy to declare that Obama is a sex maniac.
How many kids do you have, by the way?
" Is there any evidence that Obama dated black women (other than MO)?"
There is evidence that he has dated one for over 20 years.
"OK, so he's had sex twice. I have three kids, does that mean I've had sex three times?"
According to your logic, Sport, Why, yes it does!
"Some people here think he's gay. I think he's hetero and simply doesn't have much of a libido."
If all men where, Ghengis Khans, like you, imaging how dull this world would be.
"How many kids do you have, by the way?"
I have one, but I've had sex four times, so your ratio doesn't work.
" Is there any evidence that Obama dated black women (other than MO)?"
---------------------------------
There is evidence that he has dated one for over 20 years.
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Just so we understand one another, Truth, I was asking if we've evidence that he dated black women OTHER than Michelle Obama, (MO).
Are you saying he's been dating a black woman who is not Michelle and that he has done so "for over 20 years"?
Honest question.
Inquiring into Barry's libido, sexual reticence, gender preference without discussing his penis size, is like asking why are plants green without mentioning chlorophyll.
Truth,
Did I just hear you say you've had sex only four times?
Dude, quit now when you're not getting any head.
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