Did Obama make a double entendre at LBGT fundraiser?

Andrea C. writes:

If you want to see it, the video is at Michael Graham’s website. The question is, did he or didn’t he purposely make a joke. I think he clearly did. And, as with almost everything he does, it’s beneath the dignity of the office. The amazing shrinking president.

LA replies:

My first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be deliberate. But when I understood (which I didn’t initially) that he was speaking at a homosexual fundraiser hosted by lesbian Ellen DeGeneris, that settled the question absolutely. Of course it was deliberate. The statement, “Michelle didn’t go all the way down,” was his way of saying, “Michelle and I are totally pro-gay, but we aren’t gay ourselves.” It was very cleverly scripted.

I would add this: Before people get bent out of shape about this and say that it’s an unprecedentedly dirty remark by a U.S. president, please remember Clinton’s cover photo in the December 2000 Esquire, just before he left the presidency, in which he is shown, from a low camera angle, sitting in a position clearly suggesting that he is inviting the viewer—or rather the whole nation—to perform a “Lewinsky” on him. At the time, I was stunned beyond belief by this deliberate transgressive behavior, behavior worthy of a pornographer, by the president of the United States. Most conservatives didn’t take it in or see its significance. They never used it to demonstrate what Clinton meant and what the support for him by half the country said about us as a country—that he truly had succeeded in debauching America and overthrowing its normative standards.

That photograph confirmed the rightness of my view, which I had arrived at almost immediately after the Lewinsky affair broke, that Clinton must be impeached and removed. My reasoning was: If he is not impeached and removed, then we as a people have said that such behavior by a president is acceptable, and all our standards will be gone. If a president’s receiving blow jobs from an intern in the Oval Office of the White House, a quasi national shrine, was not conduct “grossly incompatible with the nature and function of the office” (federal prosecutor John Doar’s definition of an impeachable offense before the House Judiciary Committee, July 1974), what was? Few conservatives understood any of this. Most of them wanted to make it only about the lying, not about the perverted conduct of a president.

And why didn’t people want to see or speak the truth about it? Because anyone who said plainly how bad it was (not just Clinton’s behavior, but America’s acceptance of it), would be seen as extreme and crazy. See Blake’s recent comment about how, before he became a tradionalist, he thought for a long time that I was crazy. People naturally don’t want to be seen as crazy. But if you want to speak the truth, you’ve got to be willing to be seen as crazy.

LA continues:

As a further indication of the complete moral impotence of “conservatives,” consider Michael Graham’s reaction. After concluding that Obama said exactly what he intended to say at the fundraiser, he asks:

So, your reaction? Is it:

• He’s a guy, and guys tell jokes? Or

• He’s the President of the United States, and it’s not cool to make oral sex jokes about your wife?

That’s Graham’s idea of the “conservative” position: that telling oral sex jokes about your wife is not “cool”!

- end of initial entry -

June 8

Dale F. writes:

I hadn’t seen the Esquire/Clinton cover before; I realize that Esquire does salacious covers all the time, but this one was beyond belief.

Obama’s nasty comment about his wife and Ellen DeGenerate is so far beyond the pale as to be demonic. I hope that people recognize it for what it is. What a sad and desperate man.

LA replies:

Thanks to Dale for sending the photo of the Esquire cover. I’ve included it in the initial entry.

Laura Wood writes:

It is highly doubtful that Obama meant this joke.

If one views the video of Michelle doing push ups with DeGeneres (that the First Lady is doing push ups with a lesbian on national TV is an issue that appears to bother no one), the most obvious thing about the two women is that Michelle does not go anywhere near the floor. She does half push ups.

Secondly, in the video of Obama’s speech, he appears disturbed and confused by the reaction from the audience. He does not look like someone who has just delivered an intentional one-liner. He even gestures to the crowd to stop laughing.

Whether Obama meant the joke or not, the reaction of the audience clearly reveals the mentality of the people he was addressing. That’s the real issue. The mere appearance of a president at an event for homosexual celebrities is no longer enough to summon outrage. Only if he attends a homosexual gathering—and makes an off-color joke—is the conservative press gravely offended.

Daniel W. writes:

I believe that you are mistaken in your interpretation of Mr. Obama’s recent joke (about Michelle not “going all the way down”).

I’m afraid that you may not be up on your slang. You see, I believe that the President of the United States of America was suggesting, in public to a group of homosexuals, that his wife—our First Lady—will not fellate him.

LA replies:

Of course I know what the expression means. But I think it would be too crude even for Obama to be making some personal comment about his and his wife’s sexual practices. Instead, I think he was making an allusive, symbolic comment. Heterosexual couples engage in oral sex, but it is not central to their sex lives. Oral sex is central to the sex lives of lesbians. So when Obama said that his wife goes part way down, but not all the way down, he was metaphorically stating that Michelle is fully sympathetic with and supportive of lesbians, but is not herself a lesbian. It was analogous to Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale” remark.

I realize my interpretation may seem too far out to some, but to me it makes sense.

The idea entertained by many—that Obama, in making prepared remarks to an audience of homosexuals at an event hosted by a lesbian, used the expression “to go down” without any awareness of its sexual meaning—is to my mind impossible. Since the sexual reference was intentional, what exactly did he intend? To make a remark about his wife and himself? Too crude, as I said above. That leaves us with my interpretation.

Daniel W. replies:

You wrote:

“Since the sexual reference was intentional, what exactly did he intend? To make a remark about his wife and himself? Too crude, as I said above.”

But is it too crude? To a person who values—or, even more, who sanctifies—marriage, sure, it absolutely would be too crude. But to a person, like Obama, who apparently doesn’t value marriage enough to adhere to the definition that has been sufficient for hundreds of years in our society as the union under God between one man and woman, absolutely not.

In fact, since Obama now equates the union of two men or two women with what you and I think of as marriage, I find it hard to believe that ANY standards of decency as we understand them would apply.

I mean, I doubt very sincerely that he would ever imply that Michelle is less competent than he, or that she should earn less money (since women’s equality is sacred to the left). But sex between liberals is not consecrated, and when they are amongst their own, they have no reason to pretend that it is.

“Since the sexual reference was intentional, what exactly did he intend? To make a remark about his wife and himself? Too crude, as I said above.”

But is it too crude? To a person who values—indeed, who *sanctifies*—marriage, sure, it absolutely is. But to a person, like Mr. Obama, who apparently doesn’t value marriage enough to adhere to the definition that has been sufficient for hundreds of years in our society as the union under God between one man and woman, absolutely not.

In fact, since Mr. Obama is beginning to make overtures to actively delegitimize marriage by equating the union of two men (or two women, or whatever new horrors are to come) with what you and I think of as a marriage, I find it hard to believe that ANY standards of decency *as we understand them* would apply.

I mean, I doubt very sincerely that he would ever imply that Michelle is less competent than he is, or that she should earn less money (concepts sacred to the Left). But sex between liberals is not consecrated, and when they are amongst their own, they have no reason to pretend that it is.

LA replies:

“But sex between liberals is not consecrated, and when they are amongst their own, they have no reason to pretend that it is.”

That’s a very interesting point.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 07, 2012 03:31 PM | Send