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Obama the non-philanderer — 31 Comments

  1. I’ll go with Option C: one, or at most two, very controlled, ultra-secret affairs during his marriage, and none since he became a presidential candidate.

    I also believe that Obama has had a few best friends somewhere along the line but who are they? This man can keep his secrets.

  2. The description of his office reminds me of a boss I once had who spent a fortune furnishing and decorating (and painting) his office so it would be just so. He was also something of a womanizer, but not in the Bill Clinton model. He liked to hire young women for jobs they weren’t quite ready for and then have them look up to him as the expert. He’d go out drinking and socializing with a few of his young friends from the office on a regular basis. No one knew if he actually had affairs with any of the young women, but it looked suspicious. He was definitely a narcissist, though, much like our young, egotistical president.

  3. As far as desks go, mine is in the McCain mode…but I know where everything is. But otherwise…

    A picture of Einstein’s desk was also a monument to a messy desktop.

    Interestingly enough, one certified genius I knew – Dick Feynman – had an office that made mine look compulsively neat…as was his office blackboard.

    But the blackboard had the famous quote: “When I cannot create, I do not understand.” That alone made the room worthwhile.

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  5. Judging people by the style of surroindings they create for themselves is part of my professional skills as interior designer.
    A few years ago I knew (professionally) two partners, both architects, both graduates of Harvard, of approximately same age. Their personalities and organizing styles could not be more different.

    First: strict modernist, a model husband and doting father of a spoiled teenage girl. His desk was more sparse than Obama’s; by the nature of the job he had to manage simultaneously several projects in various stages of design and/or construction – and you would never know that by looking at his desk. Besides a few written notes there were 2 miniature models of buildings by his favorite architects (as paperweights), engineering and architectural scale (one of each), a neat pile of drawings, 4 good quality art markers and 3 fine-tip pens (black, blue and red). That’s it. He was always precise and calm in communications, in 5.5 years I remember him raising his voice just about 3 times. He is a solid professional, steadily bringing small but consistent flow of clients to the company. Favorite color scheme: black, gray and white. Favorite lunch – the same as long as I knew him, brought from home – a yogurt, an apple, a tuna sandwich on rye. If I regret sometimes that I left the company, it’s on his behalf.

    Second: an “artistic” personality. A satin green bow tie, striped blue shirt, yellow socks. A frightened and always apologetic girlfriend of 20 years. The papers, samples and code books are not only in his office (desk, credenza and round table covered), but in 10-person conference room (spilling on the floor) and on two desks in the studio. You always knew when he arrived – most irritating pitch of voice. Which he knew how to make almost silent if he wanted to spy on employees. Petty, conniving, always quarreling with contractors and enjoying tormenting designers whom he exploited. At least one of his projects I know of had to be fought for in arbitration. Favorite color scheme…er…imagine Firebird. Favorite lunch – at Le Cirque. He’s a regular feature on all industry gatherings, a very sociable person and a member of number of professional associations and boards. Has reputation of a brilliant architect with rare but big-bucks projects behind his name.

    Why am I saying it all, at such length? Appearances are deceiving; the most neat and controlled person not necessarily is a bland character with hidden fears and a skeleton or two in his closet, and, contrary, a bon vivant on appearance might proved to be a very difficult person nursing few psychoses and who makes the life of those close to him living hell.

  6. During WW II the OSS commissioned a psychoanalytic study of Hitler that was quite useful and revealing.

    I imagine someone — Hillary, the RNC, someone — must have done a similar study on Obama.

    Not that Obama is Hitler by any stretch, but he is a mysterious fellow that no one, as far as I can tell, really understands. Yet he is the most powerful person on the planet right now.

    It’d be nice to have a better idea of what makes Obama run. I’m hoping that by the time he is out of office we might have a better idea.

    I love this “Elect me and find out” campaign strategy.

  7. Beige could well describe most things about Obama,but it’s all for show.As for the First Couple, they seem uncomfortable around each other, and it’s hard to imagine them having a hot sex life, especially with the MIL just down the hall.There’s a ton repressed about Barry Obama, and watching his veneer crack from time to time, is about the only pleasure I can get from enduring this fakir.

  8. Can you imagine him overeating, for example?

    What if there was a big sale on arugula at the Whole Foods? All bets might be off at that point.

  9. Can you imagine him overeating, for example?

    I can imagine Obama bulimic.

    I don’t think he’s so controlled that he manages wholly to suppress his appetites. I believe that he manages to indulge them secretly and conceal his cheating.

  10. “It is home to two family photos, a very uncrowded inbox, a mug full of pens, and little else. ”

    It may reflect something quite simple, that past the impressive image and facade is a veneer lacking substantial details of depth, and that perhaps the essential emptiness of his working desk indicates that there isn’t really a whole lot going on with this guy intellectually; And that’s partially, if not precisely, how he could become an authentic manchurian candidate of his time, the pliable vehicle for the ideologues and real power brokers in the Democratic Party and their political ambitions, cornering voters for the shallowest of reasons, his contrived racial identity, and the vague opiate of notions of hope and change.

    I just finished reading American History in Black & White, by David Barton; The Democrats have a long racist history behind them, where as an institution there is probably more blame for the current economic status and problems of our American black culture that could and should be laid at the Democrats doorway, than to any other identifiable group. How ironic to see their current facade, and how they’ve morphed into demagogues of today’s social issues, yet in so many respects they are the same dishonest, incompetent blowhards as ever; But now with an oblivious voter base, including the majority of Jews and Blacks, who don’t seem to give a thought to the ramifications that these left-wing power politics will have for the future of their children and their elderly.

  11. Doodling? How about reading those thousand page tomes of legislation he’s foisting on the American public…

  12. I agree with Amy. There is a remarkable vanity about the man.

    I’d also say it has something to do with his Muslim upbringing. The Moooslims place a certain value of personal fastidiousness. To me, it evokes a glassy, sterile mindset. It might be where his lack of originality stems from. He’s good at regurgitating other people’s thoughts but flounders when asked to be creative.

  13. “I’d also say it has something to do with his Muslim upbringing. The Moooslims place a certain value of personal fastidiousness.”

    Yes, but as a type with Obama, it’s all on the surface. Splash water on face, hands, and feet before praying, but bathe the remainder of the body…whenever. That’s why those crowds of supposedly “ritually pure” Muslims stink like a billygoat’s rear end when you’re downwind on a hot day. Trust me, I’ve experienced this in person. Unpleasant doesn’t begin to describe it.

    I think Obama’s most intimate relationship is with his left hand. Narcissism brought to its logical conclusion.

  14. Two insights into Obama.

    Richard Epstein discusses Barack Obama

    Richard Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1972. He was a colleague of Barack Obama when Obama taught as an instructor. Epstein had mutual friends with Obama, and talked to Obama about some issues. His main description is that Obama is under complete self-control

    “Obama worked as a community organizer and was in many cases very constructive. He organized public/private partnerships to help the homeless and downtrodden.”

    “But, the difficulty you get, for someone who has only worked in that situation, is that he believes the creation of private wealth is something the government cannot influence or destroy. He has many fancy redistribution schemes, in addition to his health plan and new labor laws, which are all wealth killers.”

    Obama and God
    When God talks to you through your inner voice, it is even better than prayer. Obama experiences this every day, in his own words, revealed in a March 2004 interview with a reporter on religious issues. It may be good when a person declares their submision to God. It may be bad when he claims to have a daily conversation.

  15. Judging people by the style of surroindings they create for themselves is part of my professional skills as interior designer.

    I consume indoor space with a (jaundiced) aesthetic eye. I appreciate the work and talents of a good interior designer (don’t call them ‘decorators!’).

    My workspace is wholly different than my home. I work as a software engineer with an Air Force program on base. Because of the long, long hours, seemingly everyone plasters their corner of the cubicles with photos of spouse and kids and other kitschy krap. I have no pictures of my wife/kids. Somone had the gall and bad taste to ask me about this and I said: “Don’t want to drag my wife and kids into this!”

    No items of “flair” and an “awards pile” on the back corner of my desk where I pile award certificates and plaques I’ve gotten. Nothing hanging up; and I took down my nametag above my desk: “You should know whose desk this is!”. It’s a classified environment so I assiduously throw away every scrap of paper at the end of the day. Other than a pink squeekie dinosaur on my computer, my desk looks entirely unoccupied. I am the perfect cube-mate.

    My home? An adobe house my dad hand-built. rustic, charming, organic, dark and full of pipe tobacco smoke, pinon woodsmoke in the winter, just the right amount of functional clutter and ‘liveable’ furniture with top-end appliances: think Obi Wan’s adobe abode in Star Wars….

    My definition of pure luxury: being able to spill anything anywhere without a care. Blood? Urine? Scotch? Who cares: comes right out!

  16. If I ever make it out of cubicle land (there is no upward mobility in defense engineering until my 5 baby-boomer direct supervisors start dropping dead; I’ll be the “junior” engineer until I’m 60.)….

    If I every make it out of cubicle land and into an office, in sheer defiance of modern corporate culture I’ll have nothing: No pictures. No kitschy desk crap. No “I love me” walls of awards. No bookcases of “look what I read” technical books. Nothing. Just pure austerity and engineering competence!

    Bernie Madoff and every shyster, hack, goniff, poseur and wanker care very deeply about their office decor: I can tell when I walk into their offices.

    In my benighted career I’ve come to associate nice office decor with dishonesty and incompetence: a sconce? You’re an idiot. A wall of awards? You’re an insecure idiot. Pictures of wife and kids? You’re going to be divorced, idiot. Fine art? You’re an effete idiot.

    Work and Home do not mix. Not even a little. More people should have the courtesy to remember that; like Obama: Wear a goddamned coat and tie in the Oval Office!

  17. Gray: that’s why I love engineers. They make sense. (well, I might be engaging in “I love me”mode, since my first diploma is in industrial engineering. And my dad is one, too).

    And thank you for making a distinction between designers and decorators. No pretty ruffles and kitty pictures here!

  18. “No pretty ruffles and kitty pictures here!”

    Agree on the ruffles, but you’re hittin’ close to home on the kitty pictures, Sister! If it weren’t for the pictures of my cats, my humble abode would lack most of its decor. (Yes, I’m a bachelor. How’d you know?)

  19. waltj – we are talking office, not home. Besides, for moral encouragement you can always carry your cats’ likenesses in your wallet…just don’t stick them on the walls all around your office!

  20. It may be a flaw of mine, I admit. But, I don’t appreciate “suppositions” of my President. I think there are enough hard reasons to dislike the man and his policies without perambulating the Freudian landscape of his Id.

    I say “flaw” because I was probably the last person to concatenate the long series of innuendos, accusations, and DNA evidence that proved Clinton’s predilection toward sexual predation.

  21. “Oh, ok. I guess I’ll have to take them down, then;-).”

    And don’t forget to wear your tie waltj, you wouldn’t want to create a bad image; Especially when your inbox is empty, and somebody walks in when there’s finally time for a bit of doodling…

  22. “…Especially when your inbox is empty…”

    Yeah, any day now. “Walt, I know you’re on your way to your retirement luncheon, but could you just take a quick look at these accounts” is more like it. Well, beats bitching about unemployment by a country mile, I suppose.

  23. I think Michele would break his neck if he cheated on her. She is a fearsome woman. I recall during one of his interviews possibly with Rick Warren when the “above my pay grade” comment was made he also made a reference to “sacred sex”.
    Perhaps he considers sex to be a devine act.

  24. Obama does seem to be controlled by strong women figures. Probably adds a different dimension to the Palin factor.

  25. Ymarsakar just might have it:

    “Obama does seem to be controlled by strong women figures. ”

    Why is so little attention paid to his mother and, particularly, grandmother? It’s not like the information is unavailable, rather that most commenters seem seldom have know women like them, or the “religious” environment they chose; enough has been reported for anyone who has lived in the same milieu to come to some pretty standard conclusions.

    And, as one commentator on this blog has said, Obama’s private school in Hawaii suggests the source of some of the “cool” attitudes; he reminds me so much of some super-smooth Hawaiian students escaping the Vietnam draft in a can’t-fail program that couldn’t avoid a bit of science, hence me.

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