esrosedotblog

Apparently Obama has no plans to walk away.

Obama May Jump Into Fray as Democrats Counter Trump

Good. I was afraid he might fade into the sunset like a lot of former Presidents.

He will have to find his place in what is certain to be a massive opposition to the Trump Change that is expected.

Good.

This is an unusual circumstance. If the President does not get killed or die in office some other way, they have a lot of power that goes with them in retirement. Some do not use it much. Gerald Ford became my neighbor here and mostly played golf. Nixon atrophied in New York. Carter went back to his peanuts. Start3ed his own Foundation around the world.

Time will tell. Obama is young and energetic. He is not going to sit idly by while the Trumpfs try to unwind his legacy.

I welcome the conflict. I will be right here cheering him on.

Labels: Barack Obama

Tonight is the annual White House Correspondents Dinner.

Which reminds me of the 2011 Dinner where Obama took Trump apart.

Here is the back story.

The backstory behind Obama's legendary White House correspondents dinner takedown of Donald Trump

Could it happen again? Obama is actually one of the best comedians going. A strong sense of timing and a straight face.

Labels: Barack Obama, Donald Trump

I am a sucker for the Obama human interest story.

Honoring Small Business, Obamas Go Book Shopping

There aren't many. He has been shut up too long in the White prison.

He has been here a couple of times and, because we are used to Presidents, he has been welcomed as a friend. The accouterments of the Presidency are dropped pretty quickly and even though Air Force One stays ready on the tarmac right near my gym, the gloss falls away rather quickly and he is just a normal guy who we hope retires here. We are the place that Eisenhower and Ford moved to so we are particularly anxious to have a Democrat.

The Obamas have friends in Rancho Mirage, not exactly a mixed neighborhood, but he has ascended to the special class of resident which has our eye but also a live and let live attitude.

Here he is buying books at a small store in Washington. It is a nice playful article and brings out the best of how we view our leaders. No pomp. Lots of protection obviously, but the girls were there (nearly women now) and they obviously had a good time.

Don't worry, there were surely a lot of eyes looking to see any flaw. The smile is intact and while the hair is grayer. I predicted that, he is as jaunty and happy as ever. The happy warrior. Like FDR.

Did I spell grey right? Gray? Shit. I don't have that down after all these years.

From the Grammarist:

Gray and grey are different spellings of the same word, and both are used throughout the English-speaking world. But gray is more common in American English, while grey is more common in all the other main varieties of English. In the U.K., for instance, grey appears about twenty times for every instance of gray. In the U.S. the ratio is reversed.

Both spellings, which have origins in the Old English grǽg, have existed hundreds of years.1 Grey gained ascendancy in all varieties of English in the early 18th century, but its dominance as the preferred form was checked when American writers adopted gray about a century later. As the Ngram below shows, this change in American English came around 1825. Since then, both forms have remained fairly common throughout the English-speaking world, but the favoring of gray in the U.S. and grey everywhere else has remained consistent.

That is Robert Gates' book. An obvious plug for the former SecDef.

Labels: Barack Obama

Labels: Barack Obama

The annual speech.

So well done.

I look forward to these every year.

Everyone gets zinged.

Labels: Barack Obama

Busy day tomorrow.

Hail to the Chief!

Roads will temporarily shut down for Obama's motorcade on Saturday, when the president lands and is taken to the undisclosed private residence where he is spending the weekend.

Traffic delays and additional closures also are likely to occur on Saturday, when roads will used for the Tour de Palm Springs bike ride and the Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival.

"One more reason for me to stay home Saturday," said Shayla Arthur, a 35-year-old from Palm Springs who got stuck in traffic during last year's bike ride and during a previous Obama visit.

"It's not confined to one city and you need to be meticulous about where you're going to go."

But we are used to it. Despite the denials, it is rumored that they will retire here.

The main issue for me will be on Monday when AF1 will be parked on the inlet road to the airport. My short cut. Gotta go around.

It will be my pleasure.

Labels: Barack Obama

I am fascinated by the invitation from John Boehner to Netanyahu.

Apparently so are a lot of other people.

Forbes Destroys John Boehner in Scathing Smackdown

To say that John Boehner is a shitty Speaker is an understatement. One look at the shifty eyes would be enough. The fake suntan. The closet smoking. And that is without even hearing him say the things he does or see them. Snaky.

This goes beyond my normal distaste for the Wachington in fighting. It is an outright "fuck you" to our head of State.

And then, Bibi. Another snaky bastard. Manipulative. Liar. All of it.

The two together are a set. Wolves.

I don't want to rant on about it. No one seems to be paying attention to this side of things. But the sleaze factor of it is very high.

I can imagine that Obama could actually give less of a shit about it. In a way it works for him. He does not have to be in a room with the bastard. Either of them, actually.

Just sit back and watch the fun.

Labels: Barack Obama, republican whack jobs

I liked this

Letter to the Obama haters.

You lost that decade wailing about Obama the gay Communist Muslim narcissist dictator who was going to let the UN invade America and various hoaxes like "death panels," birth certificates, and the "Ground Zero Mosque" (remember how you wasted two years of your life over that?). Just think of what you could have accomplished if you hadn't wasted all that time. You could have gotten a college degree, you could have written a book, you could have run your first marathon, you could have built a boat and sailed it around the world. You could learned to speak another language - oh wait, you never would have done that.

Labels: Barack Obama

A year in Photos by Pete Sousa White House Photographer

It will warm your heart. Souza's specialty is the candid moment. There is no posing, none.

Labels: Barack Obama

We have a lot of vacationers in the Coachella Valley who become regulars.

And, it would seem, we have a new old friend!

Obama has been here a couple of times. He is bringing "the wife" this time.

Michelle and Barack Obama to Travel to Palm Springs

They say it is the golf that brings him. And the weather. And, the security which can be pretty high with the resort isolation and the long experience with Gerald Ford living here. To say nothing of Eisenhower in the "old days".

Some people I know have seen "the car" which is as close as we are likely to get. But it is nice to know he is nearby sharing the same great weather as I do.

I only see "the plane" which has its own mystique. It looms along the airport fence on my way to the gym.

Maybe they will spend some time looking at houses!

Labels: Barack Obama, MIchelle Obama

This is a great time line detail of Obama's conversion on gay marriage.

How the President Got to "I Do" On Same Sex Marriage"

It is hard to read without some teary eyes.

As much as I have loved Obama I have always felt, and still do, that he is retro on the rights of gays. Too often it has been a political football but fundamentally, I believe, if he had not had moral objections to my rights as a gay man he would have been out front on this issue from the beginning.

In this regard, Obama has been a grave disappointment.

And while he has now come out (so to speak) as in favor of my rights he is still not unequivocal.

The man to admire on this issue is Joe Biden who led from the heart and through a so called gaffe pushed the Administration into beginning their slow and reluctant embrace of true equal rights.

My view of Obama on this matter is partly one of racial resentment. I do believe that blacks are, by and large, more inclined to look down their noses at gays from a high moral perch and fail to see any similarity between their own situation and ours.

Of course there are many exceptions but in general I believe it is true. I do not think that it is a matter of "now we have ours, fuck you" but more that many blacks retain a strong stream of fundamentalist religious belief that is awash with homophobia. I know a few stories of gay black men and they are witnesses to this.

In the end, it does not matter except in time but time is the great divider between those of us who have achieved a measure of freedom as a result of affluence or education or sheer cussedness. Today, as this process has slowed down way too much, young men and women still suffer for their identities. Ignorance and intolerance still abide in enough hearts that the President could have made a difference. Still could. If he would get off his own moral perch or, perhaps, his own fear of his own sexual identity, the last bastion for most black men who need to conserve their pride in their own manhood. Insecurity is a powerful force.

Maybe I am wrong about this. I am not a shrink and I do not even know Obama. But I know straight men, straight black men, and he is not atypical of a particular strain who still cannot deal with this issue without a personal quirk getting into the way.

Thank God for Joe Biden who stood tall and still leads from his heart as well as his head. Or maybe a little more of the heart. A commodity which is in short supply in Washington DC.

Labels: Barack Obama, gay marriage, Joe Biden

NEVER TOO LATE

I wanted to include this in the post about Obama in the South End of Boston, just around one of "our" corners at Charlies.

But I couldn't figure out, then, how to do sharing on the new Flickr setup.

I figured it out today. James Dean rocked me into a new consciousness.

Labels: Barack Obama

NEAR MISS

Obama was campaigning in Boston today and stopped for a sandwich at Charlies Sandwich Shoppe which is about three minutes from where we lived. It is on Columbus, we lived on Warren.

If we hadn't moved 16 years ago, I would have been able to go see him!

Labels: Barack Obama, Boston

COMEDIAN IN CHIEF

Obama's night to give as good as he gets.

Labels: Barack Obama

HEAD SHOT

Obama remembers Dukakis and Kerry.

Labels: Barack Obama

SOTU

I thought he did a great job.

Of course.

The laundry list or "do list" was long and ambitious. It was challenging for all.

There was not a lot of standing by the opposition party. Always a good sign that there has been a full throated appeal to the cause we all feel so strongly.

At the end, the laundry list over, he gave an emotional appeal for votes, up or down, on the proposals for gun control.

He cited people in the gallery, visitors who had lost a family member or someone who had taken fire themselves and put their lives on the line to save others.

This put faces on the issues.

He came on very strongly on voter rights. He was in their face.

Very strong on climate control and they didn't like it.

I thought he was very strong and, despite what they say, bi-partisan.

He invited participation but he also left no doubt that he would forge ahead without them.

Labels: Barack Obama

NICE

From an unprecedented joint interview to be broadcast Monday.

Labels: Administration Obama, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

OFFICIAL PORTRAITS

It seems a bit weird that the most photographed person in the world would also have an "official" second term portrait by the same White House photographer, Pete Souza, who has taken thousands of shots already.

But here it is.

And he is radiant.

What a great photo. Great man.

Here is the one for the first term from 2009.

Somehow not as much bang as the one they took last week. The job must agree with him.

Labels: Barack Obama, Re-election of Barack Obama

NAMED

Scientists Name Extinct Lizard After President

Funny. They would have "yanked it" if he had lost so they wouldn't be seen as piling on. No one said that they would have switched it to Romneydon.

This isn't the actual lizard which is only a few inches long.

Labels: Barack Obama, science

FLY ON THE GREENupdated

Clinton and Obama played golf together today at Joint Base Andrews.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and longtime Clinton backer and strategist Terry McAuliffe, who's running for governor in Virginia in 2013, golfed along.

Obama/Clinton is not a simple relationship but it is certain Bill bowed his back to help out in the election.

In return for the favor, I hope Barack gave Bill a few of his cherished mulligans. When he was in "power" he just took them.

I would love to hear the talk.

The photo is from another day. I bet they wore more clothes today. It was 55 in D.C.

What is interesting about this is that Obama does not play social golf. He does not mingle with other politicians socially. He does not schmooze. Even with Democrats.

This is one more reason that I admire him.

He is a loner. He is, in all probability, an introvert. Someone who does not like or do small talk. He is engaged with people when he has a purpose and when he is in charge or the object of attention.

He is marvelous when engaging with crowds, strangers, people with whom he feels an affinity without need for engaging.

I don't know that anyone has mentioned this or sees it. I do. I am the same way.

He does have friends. All introverts do. But they are more often than not people who are normal. People who are without affect and have no interest in him because of his position.

The normal golf partners are always Marv Nicholson, the travel director now body man although they don't call him that. And a few others on staff who Obama likes and trusts as just guys. The young Korean American Eugene Kang who I wrote about recently.

I actually don't give a shit who he plays golf with but I am fascinated by the social dynamic and the personality.

I bet he has a whole lot more fun playing with Kang and the others.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton