OK, let's help the poor guy out here. It's a bipartisan gender solidarity thing.
Yes, yes, he's president of the United States of America. The most powerful male in the free world, perhaps le monde entier. Pretty wife. Great abs. Loving father. And a real good talker.
He better be 'cause, as they fly down to Africa right now, Mrs. Obamawith the buff bare arms may be asking her hubby one or two questions about this photo that's been flying all over the world ahead of them for a day now. Just as Desi Arnaz would ask his wife in the old "Lucy" show.
On the surface it might possibly appear to some jealous people that the 47-year-old ex-senator from Illinois is eyeing the working backside of Mayara Rodriguez Tavares, a 17-year-old youth delegate from Buenos Aires, no, wait, Brazil at the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. (And President Nicolas Sarkozy is checking it out too. But he's French.)
Such a suspicion about the nation's male chief executive is absolutely ridiculous, of course, and relies on the tired, old -- and patently erroneous -- sexist cliche about men having a roving eye for the opposite sex, even when they may already be in the company of a member of same said opposite gender.
There have, over the eons, been billions of misunderstandings like this between women and their men when the female followed the man's eyes and perceived them to be glued on some portion of another female's anatomy, back or front. It even happened in cave days when folks wore skimpy animal pelts. That's an Internet fact.
Those patently mistaken female impressions of visual infidelity have led to some verbal outbursts, punched arms, swung purses and long silences in the car followed by a night on the living room couch.
If the offended women would only wait one sec, they could learn the real honest-to-God object of their male's admiration. Most often, the male doesn't even know what other woman his lady is talking about. He was simply admiring a really attractive red sports car that was passing in the same spot but is now unfortunately out of sight.
The car one won't work this time. But there are other obfuscating explanations. Maybe the president had a speck in his eye -- it can happen to presidents anytime even with the Secret Service around -- and was looking down to try and get it out. Could be.
Also, as Ticket reader Tom points out, she does have great shoes.
The most innocent excuse or explanation is that the president was in the process of turning his head to thoughtfully take the hand of his life partner and help her safely down the last large step there so she wouldn't trip and embarrass herself with all the cameras around. What a guy! Chivalry lives!
And those European cameramen -- you know them -- cleverly snapped the photo to make it appear like he was looking at the long curly, brown hair and the female derriere in shiny red material that he hadn't even actually noticed was there. In fact, was there a woman there?
It's all perfectly innocent. So help him out, guys -- or gals. What other explanation can we helpfully offer the first man?
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photos of other male presidential encounters with derrieres below.
The governor of Alaska went fishing Monday, wearing those waders with suspenders that fishermen fancy, accompanied by her baby, Trig, daughter Piper and her husband, First Dude for a Few More Weeks Todd Palin. Oh, and she alerted the media.
What a spectacle -- the stars of America's cable news personalities from Fox, NBC, CNN, ABC meeting the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the shores of Kanakanak Beach in Dillingham, Alaska, while the governor brushed salmon slime off her suspenders and blasted the media, bloggers and anyone who would dare question her politically bizarre decision to quit in the middle of her first term.
To Fox, she expressed bitterness at those who peppered her with ethics accusations, saying that their ridiculous charges had nearly bankrupted her family and brought Alaska's government to a grinding halt. "The critics want to put you on a course of personal bankruptcy so you can't afford to serve," she said, calling the attacks "bull crap."
She was coy about her plans for 2012, musing that it was difficult to know what the political future would hold, let alone the next salmon run. But she was quick to criticize President Obama. As she led reporters in a boat across Bristol Bay, she opined, "Average, hard-working Americans need to be able to get out there, unrestrained, and fight for what is right. Fight for energy independence and national security, fight for a smaller government instead of this big government overgrowth that Obama is ushering in."
As the Ticket noted over the weekend, Palin has a tendency to sound like former President Richard Nixon, who intoned in the middle of the Watergate scandal, "I am not a crook." Three days after resigning as governor of Alaska, effective at month's end, Palin told CNN, "I am not a quitter. I am a fighter."
She told ABC she's pleased with her decision, damn the consequences. “I’m extremely happy," she said. "Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it.”
And when NBC's Andrea Mitchell said that some would say she didn't finish the job, Palin's voice rose. "You're not listening to me as to why I wouldn't be able to finish that final year in office without it costing the state millions of dollars and countless hours of wasted time," she snapped.
Noting that "everything changed" last August when Republican presidential candidate John McCain asked her to be his running mate, Palin said she had no regrets about accepting the nomination. "Not in the least," she said. "It was a great honor to stand by a great American hero. I would have done all that again in a heartbeat."
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: A previous Palin fishing trip. Credit: Associated Press
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), looking hale and hearty after a recent hospitalization, was on C-SPAN this week describing his groggy arrival at the medical institution when someone noticed his leg jerking and asked if he had restless legs syndrome.
The obstreperous Waxman said he knew that such an ailment is yet another example of America's greedy pharmaceutical companies creating a new disease to market new medicines for Americans to buy and swallow and pump into themselves.
The phone-in program then took the next call from the Independent Line and Waxman was surprised to learn something he didn't know. Watch his reaction.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's announcement that she was bowing out of Alaska politics on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday left a lot of viewers scratching their heads. As the Ticket reported Friday, Palin's friends report that she is genuinely sick of the attacks that seem to be part of the fabric of national politics these days.
But Palin's hastily announced press conference also had all the earmarks of Richard Nixon's famous concession speech in 1962, after he lost the campaign for California governor to Democrat Pat Brown. Nixon's rant was also a last-minute affair. Reporters had been told that Nixon -- a former congressman and senator who served as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president from 1952 to 1960 and lost the 1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy -- would not be making a public appearance.
Instead, Nixon surprised even his staff by taking the microphone and, at the end of a long, rambling, 16-minute discourse on national and state politics, he dramatically left the stage.
I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you.
Like Nixon, Palin seemed fraught with emotion. Like Nixon, she seemed angry at her critics.
Of course to the surprise of his detractors, Nixon recovered. He spent the next six years stumping the country, piling up chits from grateful politicians who benefited from his endorsements, chits he cashed in during his successful 1968 run for the presidency.
Palin gave no hints of her future, except to say that a person can influence from outside the electoral process as well as inside the governor's office. Maybe Palin, who landed on the national political map in August when Republican John McCain plucked her from Wasilla, Alaska, as his vice presidential running mate, is planning to follow the Nixon playbook on that front too.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Nixon gives his "Checkers" speech on Sept. 23, 1952. Credit: Associated Press
She is the granddaughter of Bolton Sullivan, founder of the Skil Corp. of Chicago, which makes electric power tools.
She has a degree in finance from Georgetown University.
She worked on Wall Street for the investment banking firm Lazard Freres & Co.
And she managed her husband's campaigns for Congress and the governor's mansion. She even spoke for him in the last days of the 2006 gubernatorial race when South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was sidelined after burning his eyes under the bright stage lights at a groundbreaking ceremony.
One day after the governor confessed to having an affair with a woman in Argentina, pundits are having a field day.
Reading the statement she hand-delivered to reporters Wednesday, the one that quotes from Psalms and proclaims "the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage," some praised her stalwart convictions and willingness to forgive.
But the Daily Beast's Tina Brown saw it differently. Disappointed that Jenny Sanford did not "set the table for a big-ticket matrimonial lawyer to have a payday on behalf of all the humiliated political wives — ashen Mrs. Eliot Spitzer; pulverized Dina Matos McGreevey; quietly imploding Mrs. Larry Craig; fuming deity Elizabeth Edwards," Brown said the first lady let the governor off the hook.
Photo Credit: Reuters photo of the couple arriving at the Obama White House on Feb. 22, 2009, before South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's wife Jenny wife learned that he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina.
What’s that old saying about throwing stones and glass houses? It sure comes to mind today. And it relates to President Clinton and two Republicans who just admitted they cheated on their wives.
The Charleston Post and Courier reports that Mark Sanford, as a congressman, called on Clinton to resign when his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was revealed. Sanford is now Gov. Sanford. And, as just about everyone knows by now, he confessed today that he had an affair with a “dear, dear friend” in Argentina.
But back in 1998, according to the Post and Courier, he said of Clinton, “Very damaging stuff. This one’s pretty cut and dried.” Calling the overall situation messy, he added: “I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally [to resign]."
John Ensign had similar thoughts back then. Ensign is now Nevada’s junior senator. As the Ticket reported, Ensign's popularity slumped after he admitted that he had an affair with a former staffer.
In 1998 he served in Congress and had this to say to the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "The honorable thing for him to do is to resign and not put the country through this."
No word from Sanford or Ensign on whether either man plans to resign.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford wipes his tears as he admitted to having an affair during a news conference in Columbia, S.C Wednesday, June 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, en route back to work after a mysterious four-day absence, confessed this morning that he had spent the past week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and he claimed he was alone.
Cornered at the Atlanta airport this morning by reporter Gina Smith from the State, South Carolina's leading newspaper, the Republican governor said he had considered hiking the Appalachian Trail after his state's bruising legislative season (think fights over accepting $700 million in funds from President Obama's stimulus package) but decided at the last minute to hop a plane to Argentina.
As Ticket reported Tuesday, the governor's absence left the state in a state of chaos. The lieutenant governor had no idea where he was. Political foes raised questions about dereliction of duties. And First Lady Jenny Sanford said she had no idea where the governor was but expressed no concerns. "He was writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids," she told the Associated Press before heading off with their four sons to the family's Sullivan's Island home -- over the Father's Day weekend.
But it turns out Sanford -- whose staff at one point announced he was hiking along the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail -- was actually driving down the coast of Argentina with the wind in his face.
The story raises a lot more questions than it answers. Was the two-term governor trying to dodge the media by parking his black Suburban SUV at Columbia Airport and flying out of Atlanta? Is his political career over? His marriage?
En route back to South Carolina, Sanford added, "I don't know how this thing got blown out of proportion."
-- Johanna Neuman
In this picture taken June, 26, 2008 South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford,
center, accompanied by unidentified persons, arrives to the government
house during his visit to La Plata, Argentina. Sanford admitted that
he'd secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he'd been
having an affair. during a news conference in Columbia, S.C.,
Wednesday, June 24, 2009. Sanford will resign as head of the Republican
Governors Association. (AP Photo)
For those who demand accountability in public officials, take heart. There is one area, even in these permissive times, that always leads to political trouble and it is spelled s-e-x.
Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, mentioned as a possible contender for the GOP’s big prize in four years, found that out the hard way. He announced this morning he was stepping down from his party leadership post, a day after admitting that he had an extramarital affair.
It is hard to imagine that sex is as powerful an issue in 2009 as some people thought it was in the past. (Those who think sex in government began with Bill Clinton really should go take a good American history course in summer school -- if you can find one that hasn’t been closed because of funding cuts.)
Still, in the world of Republicans, pro-family and generally religious (hence, pro-fidelity), an extramarital affair can be a problem. Especially when it comes to campaigns and raising money from the conservative base.
Ensign was head of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking spot in the Senate leadership pantheon. Combining rugged good looks, a distinguished head of gray hair and a focused, conservative outlook, Ensign was a possible contender for the GOP presidential nod in four years.
On Tuesday, he said he had a “consensual affair” from December 2007 to August 2008. There has been no indication of why the senator decided to announce his infidelity when he did, prompting media speculation about a motive.
Ensign can take heart, however, America loves someone who can claim to be the comeback kid. There are worse political platforms.
Reformed smokers like to say that the hardest thing they ever did was to break their nicotine habit. That may not apply to President Obama, a one-time puffer who today said he would sign legislation to regulate tobacco.
“This bill has obviously been a long time coming,” the president said in the Rose Garden.
“We've known for years, even decades, about the harmful, addictive, and often deadly effects of tobacco products. Each year Americans pay nearly $100 billion in added healthcare costs due to smoking.
Each day about a thousand young people under the age of 18 become regular smokers.”
During the campaign, Obama had the usual love-hate relationship with Sot-Weed (the American Colonial term for the killer leaf). He was seen chomping on Nicorette gum to ease the withdrawal cravings and often said he would stop smoking to set a better example.
When Obama appeared on NBC’s "Meet the Press" program in December, interviewer Tom Brokaw noted that the White House was a no-smoking zone.
"Have you stopped smoking," Brokaw asked.
"I have," Obama said. "What I said was that there are times where I have fallen off the wagon."
"Wait a minute," Brokaw interjected, "that means you haven’t stopped."
"Fair enough," Obama said. "What I would say is that I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier. You will not see any violations of these rules in the White House."
The White House had no immediate comment today on Obama’s smoking. For those keeping track, the no-smoking rule was imposed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back when she was first lady.
In his televised comments, Obama stressed the bipartisan support for the anti-tobacco bill, which allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the making and marketing of tobacco products.
For the president, the political cooperation was important, especially as Congress heads into the healthcare reform debate, which is expected to be far more contentious than approving a bill dealing with tobacco – which was declared a health hazard four decades ago.
“Leaders of both parties have fought to prevent tobacco companies from marketing their products to children, and provide the public with the information they need to understand what a dangerous habit this is,” Obama said. “And after a decade of opposition, all of us are finally about to achieve the victory with this bill, a bill that truly defines change in Washington.”
Cigarette packs are on display for sale in a shop April 1, 2009 in New
York City. Today the federal tax on packs of cigarettes climbed from 39
cents to $1.01, the largest tobacco tax increase ever and affecting all
tobacco products. (Photo by Mario Tama / Getty
Images)
Fridays are always good times to
straighten things out with questions nobody knew needed asking:
First, as part of the new American protocol, have you washed your hands several times already today, as Auntie Janet, the director of Homeland Security, has instructed? You never know whether your mouse has been exposed to swine flu. We disrespectfully decline to use H1N1 virus; too labby.
Where flu flies
Swine is a really great word. So's mollycoddle, an all-time favorite. "Toxic assets" was good while it lasted but now we're handed "legacy assets." As in, previously owned. Words are important in politics, as North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx discovered this week when she gratuitously threw in the word "hoax" while describing the brutal 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard.
Now, who's launching his own troop surge in Afghanistan?
A boil-brained scurvy knave
BTW, we've found the best website to generate original political insults with Shakespearean words. Click a button, which we'll do right now to see what to call GOP defector or Democrat hero Arlen Specter. And it gives us "Thou abominable hag-born scut." Again: "Thou artless beef-witted wrinkle-witch."
Do you suppose swine worry about catching human flu? If anyone sees the family of....
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Our Bloggers
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the Countdown to Crawford blog here at The Times.
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