Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:50am

It Could Happen to Anyone

Here’s something light for your Friday. We all knew what sort of guy French president Nicholas Sarkozy is, but few realized that our own president has similar aesthetic sensibilities.

Some are loudly mocking Obama for this. I’d say give the guy a break.

The king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions:

Presidents are a lower species than kings, but the principle applies. And we must recall that the wisdom of the American people has given us a president who hasn’t yet had years of practice in checking out passing babes without allowing it to be obvious to the camera. Give it some time and when his senses kick in with human conditions as the element shows to him, he’ll gaze upon it with the same cool aplomb as Sarkozy.

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Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:06am

Mark this down on your calendars! I rise in defense of Obama! It is entirely possible that he was not gazing with a lustful eye at this 16 year old girl but that something else attracted his attention. It is hard to judge from the angle. If I am mistaken however, he is not clear on the concept yet that, whatever he does while he is in office, will be spread across the net and dissected in excruciating detail. If he is afflicted with roving eyes, he’d better learn custody of them, especially unless Michelle has a good deal more patience than I suspect she has!

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:12am

Come on, funny as this is it doesn’t really bear debate.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:17am
Rick Lugari
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:21am

After watching the video it was certainly innocent enough, but still, that photo is hilarious.

Pauli
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:38am

lolz… good to be the prezz, yo.

DarwinCatholic
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:47am

It is entirely possible that he was not gazing with a lustful eye at this 16 year old girl but that something else attracted his attention.

While not normally a defender of the president — I’d like to stake out the claim that there is a category of “just looking” which does not involve “gazing with a lustful eye”.

But yes, Donald’s link suggests the picture is just an amusing coincidence. Almost too bad. I thought it gave him an amusingly human touch.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:51am

Yep–looks like one of those situations where a picture is worth a thousand fictional words. Sarkozy, on the other hand, is in full Frenchman mode.

Rick Lugari
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:56am

I almost wish it were for real and that it wasn’t a 16 year old girl. Could you imagine the bragging rights of the chick who could say, “yeah, my [please keep the comments Christian] caused an international incident!”

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:56am

“The French don’t care what they do actually As long as they pronounce it properly.”

DarwinCatholic
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 9:59am

I think, Rick, this may be an area in which a variant of the “those who have money don’t talk about it” principle applies. 😉

Zak
Zak
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 10:07am

I guess it’s just me, but Sarkozy’s gaze of adoration (affection?) seems to be directed more towards Obama. You never know with those French, after all. 🙂

Davis
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 10:15am

what is Miley Cyrus doing at the G8?

Bret Ramsey
Bret Ramsey
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 10:26am

I thought the video makes our President look worse.

e.
e.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 10:59am

Damn! Too bad this post wasn’t one where you can insert your own captions for the featured picture; there are just too many tempting ones to put up (albeit, many of which would admittedly be tendentiously liberal as they would lascivious).

Christopher
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 11:38am

Yet another photo, of a different occasion.

More than a coincidence. 😉

Joe Hargrave
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:01pm

Hey, guys…

I KNOW for a fact that it could happen to anyone because it happened to ME. Damned group photo on prom night, damned photographer had all of the girls kneeling in front of all the guys, damned camera went off, seriously, as my eyes were randomly and instantaneously cast downward so that it looks like… well, you get the idea.

What a bloody mess. I really sympathize with the President on this one.

j. christian
j. christian
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:14pm

Joe,

We know the truth about you. All that talk about economic democracy, yadda yadda – it’s just to impress the ladies. 😉

Joe Hargrave
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:18pm

Have you guys seen the video showing that Sarkozy is actually doing what people thought Obama was doing?

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=VIDEO-No-Obama-wasn-t-checking-it-out..html&Itemid=127

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:22pm

I think the French would be aghast if Sarkozy had not been engaged in La Ogle!

Henry Karlson
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:23pm

I think this post, and the comments, tells more about the people viewing the picture, than it does with what Obama actually did (save for Joe who has pointed out what he did wasn’t what people were interpreting the picture as being).

e.
e.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:30pm

I think the above post regarding the whole host of previous posts concerning the featured post surely speaks volumes about the commenter than anybody else here; reminds me of certain Republican careerist policians who attempt to demonstrate such virtuous exterior while when their own private lives are exposed, they either are in knee deep in vile pornography or themselves engaged with exceedingly exhorbitant high-class call girls given to remarkably lewd acts.

jh
jh
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:33pm

Oh Bah Humbug Henry

I think it shows that (what it appears to be a mostly male comment section currently) that is often lets say critical of Obama wants to have a little bonding with him. It is human which is nice to see

It is sort of like the amusing Bush Vollyball picture.

DarwinCatholic
Reply to  e.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:36pm

e.

I think that I if I carefully diagrammed the above sentence carefully, I’d find you to be impugning Henry a bit harshly, so I won’t. I agree that Henry’s response is rather humorless and up-tight, but be wary of getting to personal as I’d hate to have to douse a flamewar on such a light post.

Henry,

I’m not clear what it is that you think the thread proves about its participants other than that:

1) They have a sense of humor.
2) Many are willing to confess to having innocently “checked out” a woman in the past.

Is there one of these that you object to?

e.
e.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:37pm

What’s interesting to note is Henry himself had claimed to be an adept on the subject of Sir Thomas More; too bad he is not so much an expert that he seems wholly ignorant of the saint’s own candid admission about being, every once in awhile, given to such tempting speculations concerning the seductive wiles of the female flesh (which is principally why he did not pursue a ecclesial but instead a secular vocation).

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:38pm

The humor impaired, they are always with us.

e.
e.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:44pm

Darwin Catholic,

One need only read More’s intriguing work, Dialogue of Comfort; in fact, you might even decipher just which allegorical character that seems quite in sync with the kind of rather seemingly scrupulous (yet, at heart, devious) persona H. Karlson himself seems wont to assume in his above comments.

Yet, with all due respect to you and my betters; I’ll bow out from remarking any further.

DarwinCatholic
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 12:47pm

e.,

Sorry, I don’t mean to drive you away. I agree with you that an excessive puritanism often masks hidden problems. I’m just concerned that specifically applying that to a particular person (whom none of us get along with well) will start trouble.

Perhaps I go overboard, but I think sometimes it’s necessary to be extra careful when dealing with comments about people I don’t like — since they’re likely to be taken even more sharply than they’re meant.

Jay Anderson
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:16pm

This post is yet again indicative of the Calvinist mindset of you Americans. What would be dismissed as quite natural and merely typical gazing by more enlightened Europeans is scrutinized by the Americanist puritans on this blog for purely partisan purposes.

When former French President François Mitterrand died, his wife and mistress appeared side-by-side at his funeral. That’s how it’s done in predominantly Catholic France. If only you protestant-inspired Americanist Catholics could be as open-minded as European Catholics. But I suppose you’d argue that having mistresses and claiming to be an atheist would make Mitterrand a “bad” Catholic, despite the fact that he was born into a devoutly Catholic family (unlike many of the late-arriving evangelical converts who comment here) and despite the fact that his mother was a remote niece of Pope John XXIII.

But what I find most offensive about this post is the not-so-subtle racist portrayal of the President as the stereotypical over-sexualized black male. Notwithstanding the President’s clearly Adonis-like persona, the racism inherent in this obvious attempt at sexualizing your country’s first black President is nothing new to the neo-con Republican dirty tricksters who brought down Harold Ford, Jr. with similar sleazy tactics.*

* And, since I am the master of tu quoque, and in an attempt to preempt others who might use that technique to refute my argument, please don’t even bring up the subject of Clarence Thomas’ disgusting performance and feigned indignation over his alleged “high-tech lynching”. Since he’s more white than black because of the conservative way he votes (and not to mention a dissident Catholic because of his positivist jurisprudence), any effort to denounce the alleged portrayal of him as an oversexualized black male will only fall on deaf ears.

/parody

Flambeaux
Flambeaux
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:23pm

Jay gets the koopie doll. I can’t top that. 😀

Pauli
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:26pm

This is why I wear dark glasses and carry a blind man’s cane whenever I’m in a public place where I might be photographed. You got to learn from the masters.

chomsky zombie
chomsky zombie
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:27pm

prurient juvenile americanist sexist hypocrites, all of you. you probably tell lewd jokes at your fascist knights of columbus beer bashes, don’t you?

jh
jh
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:33pm

Oh Jay that is classic 🙂

Tito Edwards
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:35pm

Chomsky Zombie,

No, we burn Protestants at the stake.

Why do you ask?

/parody

Joe Hargrave
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 1:41pm

“you probably tell lewd jokes at your fascist knights of columbus beer bashes, don’t you?”

Inbetween goosesteps, yes.

Foxfier
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 2:50pm

Dang, I’ve really got to get to my lady’s auxiliary meetings more often, those VFW meets where we plot to take over the world just eat too much time, and the exploding casseroles are SO hard to make…..

Me, I found the photo giggle-worthy– several places have put in a caption of “wow, nice shoes!”

S.B.
S.B.
Friday, July 10, AD 2009 11:49pm

I think this post, and the comments, tells more about the people viewing the picture, than it does with what Obama actually

It says that the commenters here are human beings with a sense of humor.

S.B.
S.B.
Sunday, July 12, AD 2009 9:28am

Perfect parody of MM, although it’s hard to come up with anything more ideological than the reality.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Sunday, July 12, AD 2009 11:57am

You guys are disclosing sworn 4th degree secrets. Hush, hush!

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Sunday, July 12, AD 2009 4:29pm

A very healthy reaction from the parents of the girl:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/07/mother-speaks-out-says-she-would-have.html

kadiane
kadiane
Saturday, July 25, AD 2009 12:13am

As a catholic, i expect you to update your post with the video that changes your first assumption. If not, you are guilty of smear. What would have christ done ?

kadiane
kadiane
Saturday, July 25, AD 2009 12:17am

As a catholic, i expect you to update your post with the video that changes your first assumption. If not, you are guilty of smear. What would have Jesus done ?

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