An occasion for my "Big Government sounds like a creepy stalker" tag.

Email received just now:

From "Change" to "Exchange" — the deflation of Obama elation and how can old enthusiasts find comfort.

Surely, it must be happening, an emergent Obama nostalgia, to take the edge off the dreariness of what the Obama administration has become. There must be those who, seeking solace, are looking back to old comforts like Obama Girl:



Let's close in on that 4th verse:

You’re into border security
Let’s break this border between you and me
Universal healthcare reform
It makes me warm
You tell the truth unlike the right
You can love but you can fight
You can Barack me tonight
I’ve got a crush on Obama

Oh, it's so hard to keep nostalgia pure. Can you watch — and by "you," I mean only those who have loved Obama — and not talk back? Universal healthcare reform/It makes me warm. Yeah, "warm" as in: overheated with anger. You tell the truth unlike the right... Yeah, that's true if you read it the right way. It could mean that all politicians talk at us in a manner that is intended to be received as "truth-telling," that contains elements of truth, exaggeration, and falsehood, and that there are different ways to perform this necessary political activity, and the politicians on the right do it one way, and the way Obama does it is a different way.

Goodbye to Ruth Garland-Dewson, the San Francisco milliner.

"Mrs. Dewson owned a celebrated shop on upper Fillmore Street called Mrs. Dewson's Hats for more than 37 years. Among her customers were former Mayor Willie Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Samuel L. Jackson, B.B. King and Sharon Stone. Brown called her "the milliner to high society." Mrs. Dewson designed a hat for him, which she called the Willie Brown Snap Brim. 'It fit my personality,' Brown wrote in his autobiography, 'Basic Brown."

When I was in San Francisco back in 2007, I had a chance encounter with her. I blogged this:

I was traipsing about San Francisco yesterday, and, snapping dozens of pictures, I made my way over to Fillmore Street for a little window shopping. I saw this...



.. and was struggling against the glare and reflections to frame my shot — and also, idiotically, talking on my iPhone — when a woman — who I now understand to be Ruth Garland-Dewson — swept out of the store and flung herself between me and the picture of Barack Obama.

"Are you trying to take a picture of my man?" she said dramatically.

But she wasn't what I for a second thought she was: one of those shopkeepers who are touchy about having their place photographed. She wanted to come out and talk — about Barack Obama and other things as well. I got off my phone conversation and complimented her on the great shop and asked if she had extra large hats. I love women's hats, but since I need a men's extra-large size, I can never find a woman's hat — aside from something stretchy — that fits. She found me what might have been her largest hat, and it almost fit. You know, I should have bought it! It was ocher-colored with a dark purple spiral — a felt hat with a large brim. I think I would have bought it if she'd tried to talk me into it (as so many sales people have nudged me beyond my initial resistance — it's not very hard).

But she wanted to talk about Barack Obama. Do I like him? Yes! I think he's a good man, and that he would be able to do a lot of good. I added, "But I kind of like Giuliani." That was okay with her, it seemed — so long as I don't like Hillary.

I'm sad to read that she's died, and I'm sorry I didn't buy that hat. She was so sociable and nice to me that day. She seemed like she was ready to launch into a conversation with me just because I was the one person who happened to be around just then.

Can you see the printed text in my photograph, above? That's her line, "I would say, 'Go, Obama, you're black enough for me,'" which ended a letter that she had printed in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 1, 2007, reacting to what was then a hot dispute: whether Obama was "black enough."

"I am as troubled by the use of the word 'woman' to describe the 18-year-old object, briefly, of a 53-year-old’s affections..."

"... as I am by the use of the word 'lover' to describe my 18-year-old self, in the context of that relationship."

Writes the 59-year-old Joyce Maynard on the occasion of a documentary movie about the now-dead J.D. Salinger.

IN THE COMMENTS: T J Sawyer said:

"His was a seduction played out with words and ideas..."

Sounds like Maynard is making a strong case for withdrawing the voting privilege from 18-year-olds. Or at least the distaff portion.

(Do I need to explicitly mention 2008 and 2012?)

"Where's Bruce Springsteen? He helped Obama get elected. Shouldn't he weigh in on the Syria question?"

Asks Meade, after he sings along awhile with the song I'm playing on my iTunes as a consequence of that "Oh" discussion in the previous post.

I say: "Yeah, what are all the celebrities saying about Syria? Are any of them talking now?" They loved to love Obama on the issues they loved to love him about. They helped America love him, and they looked so lovable loving him like that. But they won't look so pretty talking up a war, so I think they're off somewhere else. La la.

What was the song Meade sang? It wasn't Bruce Springsteen. I've got zero Springsteen in my iTunes. In that earlier post, we were listing our songs that begin with "Oh," and American Liberal Elite, tweaking the rules, said "Ohio." So here at Meadhouse, it was tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own....

And what does Neil Young think about Syria? Neil did have an Obama-era song about war. Guess what? War became complex and nuanced. He sang: "When I sing about love and war/I don’t really know what I’m saying." He explained that love and war are "very deep subjects."

You can’t possibly know what it means to somebody else. War to one person may mean a justified thing that’s happening for a very good reason, and another person may think that’s a terrible thing and never should have happened. And another person will be thinking that he lost his sister or his brother or his mother in the war and it was a waste of time. And another person could be thinking the exact opposite: that his brother went to war and gave his life for our country. So you can’t really have an opinion, although I have opinions and I’ve had them and I’ve made very loud statements about things. But that’s the way I felt at the time.

Back in the Bush administration, when he did an album called "Living With War"...

I was very outspoken about the anger I felt about certain things that were happening at that time in history. But again, I was no more right than the people who believed in it because it was such a big thing — how can you know? How can you know all of the reasons and everything that’s happening? I just don’t enjoy war. I’m not like a fan of war. And love can be very damaging, and it can be very good. So you just don’t know where to go with these things....

There's always Obama good, Bush bad. Love Obama. Hate Bush. Everything becomes so deep and complex when you're contemplating the one you love.

So I wrote about that — the quandary of not knowing what to do with any of those things. It’s kind of a useless point of view.

Oh! There's a little truth from a celebrity: It’s kind of a useless point of view.

Reemerging twinges of lust for our old boyfriend, Bill Clinton.

That's the post title I've written for this quotation of the first 2 sentences and the last 2 sentences of Maureen Dowd's new column. Read with me, and then let's talk about it:

Not  only is President Obama leading from behind, now he’s leading from behind Bill Clinton.

After dithering for two years over what to do about the slaughter in Syria, the president was finally shoved into action by the past and perhaps future occupant of his bedroom....

The less Obama leads, the more likely it is that history will see him as a pallid interregnum between two chaotic Clinton eras.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And so does Bill Clinton.

If you want to talk about what's actually going on in Syria and what the United States ought to do about it, please go to the earlier post on the subject. This new post is for talking about those 4 Maureen Dowd sentences. I'll start off the conversation with a list of 10 things.

1. The phrase "leading from behind" has always seemed funny to people. If you're behind, you're not in front, so how is that leading? Those who like Obama think it's clever/intriguing. Those who are literal-minded — and notice imagery — focus on the word "behind."

2. To take "leading from behind" and then put Barack behind Bill is to demand that we picture the 2 men in a physical position and — particularly with the amusing phrasing and because we're talking about Bill Clinton — to experience the sexual innuendo.

3. Said innuendo is violently intensified by the phrase: "shoved into action by the past and perhaps future occupant of his bedroom."

4. If Barack is behind Bill, then how did Bill shove Barack? Maureen is not fully in control of her imagery.

5. Got to give Maureen points for the poetic proximity of the verbs "dither" and "slaughter."

6. The dithering is Barack's. The (unlinkable) OED says "dither" originally meant, in dialect, "to tremble, quake, quiver, thrill."

7. "Pallid" means " Lacking depth or intensity of colour; faint or feeble in colour; spec. (of the face) wan, pale...." That's quite something, saying that history will remember The First Black President, Barack Obama, as pale-faced!

8. Barack is pallid compared to Bill. Maureen is taunting Boyfriend Barack: He's not as manly as Boyfriend Bill, who might just get to be her boyfriend again.

9. Pallid interregnum. "Pallid" is a poetic word, and Maureen is doing various poetic turns. I know what "interregnum" means, but I also hear near-puns, and we've got leading from behind and shoving in the bedroom and 2 boyfriends, one of whom is portrayed as subordinate.

10. And that brings us to "vacuum," an empty space. One might say a hole, which you know Bill Clinton feels compelled to fill.

Daniel Ellsberg says "there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material..."

"... and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an 'executive coup' against the US constitution."

The canonization of Snowden continues apace. The Snowden PR is cranking out material steadily. The criers of "treason" are cringing somewhere.

Obama was strolling about in California with the Chinese President — making some sort of show of not wearing neckties, assuming we'd maintain the usual admiring gaze.

Where are his defenders? Where are all the people who loved him so much and defended everything? Does he know how to operate without adulation, when the politics of infatuation with heroes has latched on to some other guy?

Bill Clinton acknowledges double entendre about Hillary having sex with Barack Obama.

From a montage of clips from recent graduation addresses, shown on today's "Fox News Sunday":

"One of the things that heartened me when President Obama asked Hillary to be secretary of state and she said yes, and they developed this -- not just working relationship -- this amazing friendship, which I just watched with great interest, is that they -- they had -- oh, come on, guys. Get a life here."

The "oh, come on, guys" reacted to the audience's reaction to "I just watched with great interest." I wish I had the video clip, because it was very clear from the manner of his laughter that he was acknowledging the double entendre and — I think — the idea that people associate him with sexuality.

ADDED: Here's the video:

Obama's 1979 prom photos.

Here.

ADDED: At the top of Memeorandum right now, we see this snapshot of what America is paying attention to:

"Michelle makes me tidy up, admits messy President Obama."

Actual headline at The NY Post for an article about how the First Lady is on the cover of Vogue again.

“I had this little bachelor apartment that Michelle refused to stay in because she thought it was a little, uh . . . you know, pizza boxes everywhere... When she came, I had to get her a hotel room.”

That's a very casual revelation that she would have slept overnight with him if only he'd had a nicer looking place. There's zero regard for the folks in this country (and world) who think you shouldn't have sex until you're married. And he's going out of his way to make her sound snooty. I had to get her a hotel room.

“And what Michelle has done is to remind me every day of the virtues of order,” the chief executive said. “Being on time. Hanging up your clothes. Being intentional about planning time with your kids.”

Why would a man say that about his wife? It makes it sound like they have a mother-and-son relationship. And what woman wants to be thought of as a stickler for order? It's not sexy, and it's not  respectful. Plus, from a political standpoint, it sounds fascist, and it prompts us to think about her efforts to tell us what we're allowed to eat. Does she care about our health, or is it — as the right-wingers like to say — all about control?

He added, “We’re very different people, and some of that’s temperamental, some of it is how we grew up. Michelle grew up in a model nuclear family: mom, dad, brother. I had this far-flung family — father left at a very young age, a stepfather who ended up passing away as well. My mother was this wonderful spirit, and she was adventurous but not always very well organized.”

So your wife is the mother you never had, and your mother sounds like the sex partner an adult male would want!

“Ninety percent of our conversation is about these girls: What are they doing? And who’s got what practice? And what birthday party is coming up? And did we get a gift for this person?” the first lady said.

90%? If true, that's terrible. Where is their relationship as adults? I have trouble believing it's true, since I assume Michelle has people to handle the girls' social schedule and gift-buying. Whether it's true or not, it's a choice to present us with this picture of their relationship, all about fussy household details, short on wide-ranging conversation, and utterly unsexy. It's in Vogue, so it must be what they think women want to hear. They must think women love the idea of a man tamed by his woman. Or maybe they are revealing how they think ordinary couples behave and they're posing as just like you.

President Obama admitted that he benefited politically coming into the public’s eye as a young parent. He and Michelle looked like any other husband and wife struggling to make ends meet:

“We had to figure out how to make a mortgage, payin’ the bills, goin’ to Target, and freakin’ out when . . . the woman who’s looking after your girls while Michelle’s working suddenly decides she’s quittin’.”

You've got to give him some credit for genuineness amid the fakery. He admits he's using this material for political benefit, and the pose is so exaggerated that only a nitwit would fail to see that it's posing. In that sense, we can see that he is an ordinary guy... if the ordinary guy is a self-advantaging faker. But is that what women want? A man who exploits his family life for careerist goals?

Congressional Democrats whine that their boyfriend never calls them.

Politico reports.

Interviews with dozens of members of Congress and senior aides reveal frustration and in some cases exasperation.... These Democrats say they almost never hear from Obama personally... [T]he president evidences no interest in getting to know them or their political circumstances....

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), an early Obama supporter in 2008 and top surrogate in that race, put it this way: “Everyone loves a touch. It’s not his favorite part of the job. But it’s a necessary part of the job.”

Everyone loves a touch....

To bring up the topic of Obama and his old colleagues with members of Congress themselves, not a class of people lacking in pride, is often to get stared back with daggers. Hemming and hawing often take place, good-sport recollections of always hearing back from staff are brought up and occasionally come requests to go off the record....

[T]he tensions flared anew when Democrats on the Hill got a cursory heads-up just a day before Obama’s campaign apparatus announced plans to become a new political entity aimed at pushing through the president’s agenda. The first time it came up, said this official, was at a “this is what we’re doing” briefing the day before it was made public.

A conversation for the end of the year.