Most wingnuts go straight for the “uppity” angle when criticizing President Obama for asking two Marines to hold umbrellas over himself and the Turkish Prime Minister at an outdoor press conference during a downpour.
Noted boxed wine enthusiast Ann Althouse digs a bit deeper in a post entitled, “The word ‘umbrella’ appears exactly once in Obama’s ‘Dreams from My Father.'” Do think I’m kidding? No, I am not.
I’m astounded to see that the umbrella figures importantly in the book — and it is even an umbrella held over him by another man (his younger brother Bernard). This happens at the end of what is the most dramatic scene in the book, on the last page of the final chapter.
[snip]So — as he dramatizes it —it is at the moment when he finds out who he really is that another man suddenly appears and is sheltering him with an umbrella. He’s been crying, but now it all makes sense, and — with the prompting of the younger man — he sees that he is okay.
[snip]Flash forward, and he’s President. He is in the Rose Garden. It starts to rain. No man suddenly appears with an umbrella. He is getting wet and he is President — with plenty of airplanes and rifles and all of the world’s greatest military at hand — but he is still getting wet. He has to order the Marine to shelter him. It isn’t Bernard squatting with a bent-up old umbrella. It’s a Marine in full-dress uniform, with a fine unbent umbrella, which is nevertheless not correct under the official — male, rigid — Marine Corps regulations… And here he is, the center of the whole world’s attention, and he had to call for the umbrella. He is not okay.
Wingnuts have demonstrated amazing super powers in the past, including the ability to conduct a comprehensive neurological assessment via a snippet of grainy videotape and audit a family’s finances by peering through the kitchen window at their countertops.
In her analysis of the meaning of UmbrellaGate, Althouse has taken it a step further, investing that “famously Freudian symbol” with powers that far surpass Mary Poppins’ foul weather gear, including the ability to emasculate US Marines and transform the POTUS into an insecure child. It’s both insane and fascinating.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
schrodinger's cat
Did the marine holding the umbrella, sing
Under my umbrella..ella..ella..
Now that would be a scandal.
dmsilev
It always amazes me when I remember that that woman is a law professor. I truly feel sorry for her students.
(ditto those poor souls unfortunate enough to have Glenn Reynolds as a “teacher”)
MattF
I have to say, I found this one hard to believe… even after all the nasty things I’ve written (and worse things I’ve thought) about wingers. What. Is. The. Matter. With. Them. Anyhow.
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: Wingnut gibberish has become its own language, and most of it makes no sense to me.
Jerzy Russian
Jesus Christ. Green Balloons already.
IowaOldLady
How does The Onion have any room to satirize?
WereBear
So many scandals! So little sense!
dmsilev
In the “we all saw this coming” corner of this “scandal”, Our Lady of the Tundra had an aggrieved tweet about how horrible it was for Obama not to hold his own umbrella, and, well, oops.
DougJ
Heh.
Violet
@dmsilev: Saw that yesterday. Hilarious. Pretty much everything she says to criticize others, there’s a photo or video of her doing the exact thing she’s criticizing. Teleprompters, umbrellas, whatever.
pat
Marie Burns at realitychex.com has pictures of other people not holding their own umbrellas.
PeakVT
He is not okay.
Wingnut projection at its finest.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: and at a major public university, not Oral Roberts’ or Bob Jones’ University (yeah, I know they probably don’t use the possessive) or whatever strange institutions Robertson and Falwell cobbled together. It’s amazing and more than a little depressing.
Did the Domino’s guy ever open Blessed Virgin U?
Violet
@PeakVT: So true. And this one, but I think she meant “she”:
All these scandals really do get a girl excited.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@pat: Oh christ, that pic of Dubya at the end is the perfect capper.
Calming Influence
Don’t forget, Obama is also the first politician to ever use a teleprompter.
Mr Stagger Lee
Wonkette’s take on the scandal, guest blogged by an Marine is an excellent read!
MomSense
@IowaOldLady:
Exactly! They have destroyed satire. This is the real scandal of our time. I can no longer tell the difference anymore between just another wingnut WTF and an onion headline.
Maude
A few days ago Yahoo News had a headline that Obama’s agenda was derailed by scandals. Today it is Obama’s agenda marches on.
I think Ann meant that Obama should have been the one holding the umbrella over the Marines.
Racist git.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, that’s their problem. They’ve been living in their own bubble for so long that the things they say in public sound more and more like inside baseball (or just gobbledegook) not only to us but to the entire population. They’re not connecting anymore.
nastybrutishntall
The gall of that man. I bet he eats T-bone steaks, too!
Richard
These people are fucking insane.
RSA
Checking Amazon, I discover that the word ‘umbrella’ appears exactly once in Reagan’s Diaries. Clearly there’s a dissertation waiting to be written. By someone pretending to be an English major, I’m thinking. With lots of alcohol for inspiration.
jayjaybear
Wow…the commenters over there are scary. If they were tongue-flicking her clit any harder you’d be able to hear the buzz. At least over here, around 1/3 of the commentariat think Cole’s a wanker…
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Still cannot believe he was ever our President.
The Dangerman
I happened to channel surf on to Fox News this morning and they were all up in arms about how the IRS “scandal” means Obamacare should be repealed because of the mandate and the IRS’s involvement in it. I assume this means yet another vote for repeal in the House.
Tokyokie
This “scandal” may be making me crazier than the rest of them. I’ve seen several commentators say that Obama, by having Marines deploy umbrellas, violated the UCMJ. No, no, no, a thousand times no! The UCMJ covers the rights of service members charged with criminal violations. (Hey, fucktwits, the “Uniform” in the UCMJ means that it’s applicable to members of all service branches, not to the clothes they’re wearing.) What it may violate are the regulations laid out by Permanent Marine Corps Uniform Board. Except those are service regulations, not, as is the case with the UCMJ, an act of Congress, and the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, has the ultimate authority as to how those regs are applied, or if they’re applied at all. And at the very beginning of those aforementions PMCUB regs is this:
Keeping a couple of heads of state from getting drenched in the rain I think just maybe would be an interpretation that would address a specific concern under a specific set of circumstances. So it’s not even a violation of the PMCUB.
It never would have occurred to me that had George W. Bush had a Marine hold an umbrella over him during an outdoor news conference in inclement weather that he had threatened the very foundation of American civilization as these assholes seem to believe happened with Obama. I’m not sure whether the difference is that Bush is a Republican or Bush is white, although I suspect it’s both.
WereBear
Both. Because they made a huge fuss over the First Lady saying kids should eat more vegetables. How UNcontroversial can a statement be?
IowaOldLady
@Mr Stagger Lee: That marine is worthy of Wonkette, and that says a lot!
Higgs Boson's Mate
Odd that Althouse’ preternatural analytic skills failed her completely both before and after we attacked Iraq.
Ruckus
It’s both insane and fascinating.
Not really sure about the fascinating but you nailed the insane part. It could be fascinating if you were writing a dissertation of some sort, or if you studied group psychosis for a living.
Amir Khalid
“Motherf*****” appears two or three times in Dreams From My Father. Isn’t there a better scandal to be had out of that?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ruckus:
If Conservatism was found to be a mental disorder you could bet the ranch that they’d all apply for disability money.
different-church-lady
I am starting to suspect the only people who have actually read “Dreams From My Father” are hard-core wingnuts. And it appears they studied every line for secret messages.
Keith
Imagine lying on your deathbed, thinking to yourself, “I actually spent several hours of my life researching and writing a blog post about how a president has a Freudian attachment to umbrellas…umbrellas! My life, what has become of my life?”
southend
@MattF:
To a lot of wingnuts, it’s pretty simple: the uppity negro with the “D” after his name had the temerity to get elected. Twice.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Keith:
Only a feelthy hippy would accuse Ann Winebox of thinking.
The Dangerman
@Tokyokie:
It’s both, but mostly the former; recall, Hillary killed Vince Foster and Bill was running drugs out of Arkansas.
Ash Can
Dear Ann Althouse et al.,
The President is black. Deal with it. The end.
Signed,
The USA
West of the Cascades
@Chris: Except that they still seem to “connect” with most of the media, because many political journalists who aren’t ideologues have simply become entertainment reporters, looking for whatever titillating headline will win the 60-minute news cycle. Even if most of the country doesn’t understand what these people are saying any more, their nonsense continues to dominate the political “discourse” and stops the government from being able to function. And I’m not sure how we get back to a functioning democracy, given how far we’ve gone in the opposite direction.
PurpleGirl
Maybe the lush (Althouse) thinks it should have been a Secret Service agent or one of the White Houses staffers who held the umbrellas. I think it became the closest person to the President and the Turkish official. That made it a Marine’s task, being the closest. It’s possible we still would have been treated to a rant about any one holding umbrellas.
No wonder I spend so much playing games and watching kitten cams lately. The real world drives up my blood pressure and makes me sick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Dangerman: also Bill and Hillary and their dirty hippie staffers did all kinds of things to disrespect teh White House, and treated the Secret Service like servants, etc etc
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I’ve been trying to remember, I know Althouse used to call herself a disappointed, the-party-left-me Democrat, but it was about Iraq?
Mnemosyne
I just tried to explain Umbrellagate to G, who had not yet run across it. His response was basically, “What the fuck is the motherfucking problem?”
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
G listened to the audiobook, as read by the author. It was particularly funny to hear POTUS say “motherfucker” in that level, calm voice of his.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Ash Can: That pretty much sums it up. You might want to add “and a Democrat” for extra precision. Or not.
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
The absolutely only argument against a country having proper health care. And not a very good one at that.
Imagine what the country would be like if we could cure the majority of the affected of the insanity. Or even a substantial minority. That would make it a
substantialabsolute positive good to have actual health care for everyone.pat
So because Marines (only the males, natch) are not supposed to use an umbrella when they are in uniform (must have some awesome drycleaning bills for those wet uniforms) they are prevented from holding an umbrella over the POTUS and his distinguished guest?
As has already been stated, What. Is. Wrong. With. These. Jackasses.
Ruckus
@West of the Cascades:
And I’m not sure how we get back to a functioning democracy, given how far we’ve gone in the opposite direction.
This. A million times this.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Insanity. Around the bend. Nuts. Or to boil it down to the basics, racist.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mr Stagger Lee: That is a thing of beauty.
Chris
@West of the Cascades:
I don’t know either. Last time it took near revolutionary conditions backed by near universal public outrage. Neither is likely in the immediate future.
Ash Can
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Maybe not, at least in this case. This topic was covered on LGF, and the reactions on the right wing blogs made it abundantly clear that it was the sight of a white Marine holding the umbrella for a black man that set them off. Seriously.
JPL
@dmsilev: CBS News showed Sarah’s tweet and the picture last night. I guess they really didn’t like getting burned with phony emails about Benghazi.
Mnemosyne
@pat:
I think some of the ex-servicemembers in other threads were saying that there is a dress raincoat that goes with your dress uniform, so you’re supposed to wear that rather than use an umbrella.
They further went on to say that if you were marching in formation in the rain and some of the guys forgot their raincoats, everyone had to take theirs off so they were, well, uniform in appearance. I’m guessing the forgetful guys only did that once after their fellow squad members got hold of them.
pat
@Mnemosyne:
Hmm, I wonder if it would be OK for a Marine to offer the president his raincoat.
I love the picture, that big Marine standing with his arm outstretched holding the umrella. I wonder if he was thinking, Wow I bet this goes viral.
Ha.
Mustang Bobby
@JPL: Small correction there. It was ABC’s Jonathan Karl that got burned; CBS was the network that actually called out the Republicans for lying.
Still waiting for Mr. Karl to at least say “Oops.”
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A major public university? I’m surprised Harvard hasn’t made her an offer yet. She’ll fit right in along Niall Ferguson.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mustang Bobby: I’m wondering what role Karl actually played in this. A long time ago, CNN tried to start a “Gen-X” political talk show; if memory serves, they actually kinda copied the set of “Friends” for is, but I may be projecting my contempt for CNN and the whole idea back on reality. Jake Tapper was the host, and Jonathan Karl was a panelist– he was (again IIRC) a snotty, Paul Ryan-esque Glibertarian. And the fact that he said “ABC has obtained emails”, when he never saw them: that strikes me as some serious shit for someone at his level in the media food chain. Hard to believe it was just an oversight.
Baud
Live wet or die!
Peter
I’m sure they won’t, but I would love to see the wingers go all-in on this one. There is no clearer distillation of how far afield the republicans have gone than trying to gin up outrage over a fucking umbrella.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
In the navy(a long, long time ago) we didn’t even have rain coats. An umbrella? NFW. Once had to man the rail in a snowstorm in dress blues and white hat. Still, better than humping 50 lbs of gear in a monsoon in Vietnam while getting shot at.
TAPX486
@Ruckus: Racism it is. When you read the comments and Obama is referred to as a monkey or a child or on and on. One commenter went after Michelle’s mother. These folks are beyond sick.
The really sad part is they could have taken that photo and created a series of truly funny comments like the ones with Hillary and her cell phone. Of course you would have to be over the age of 6 and have a sense of humor to do that.
Calming Influence
@RSA:
I’d like to see those poll numbers – 1/3 seems a little low.
Snarla
@pat: Well, they’ve never served in the military, for one…
Ruckus
@TAPX486:
Yeah.
Alex, I’ll take racism for 500 million.
If you’re going to bet, always bet on the sure thing. Of course it is not impossible to believe there is a rather large level of insanity involved at the same time.
El Cid
She’s discovered him–Barack Obama is the Penguin
Suffern ACE
The next time it rains, the president should order tge marine to help him into his yellow raincoat with the red boots and cry when they only have orange boots. “You’ve disappointed me just like my mother!” He should sob and run back into the White House. That should tie them up in knots for months.
El Cid
He needs to have a set of Black Panthers carry him around in a litter and emerge wearing a kente cloth robe.
Liberty60
@Calming Influence: I think its closer to 27%.
Mustang Bobby
@El Cid: Barack Obama is really Oswald Cobblepot?
Anya
Isn’t Cole a Jarhead? What’s his take?
TAPX486
@El Cid: Maybe they could turn that into a musical!
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: The had reported on the story on Face The Nation. Jonathan Karl said that ABC news had the emails. hmmm!
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: The had reported on the story on Face The Nation. Jonathan Karl said that ABC news had the emails. hmmm!
JPL
fywp
Anya
@JPL: Jonathan Karl is a right wing hack. I was shocked to learn about his background (A Right-Wing Mole at ABC News). It all makes sense now.
Anya
why is my comment in moderation?
JPL
@Anya: I have three comments in a row so I must be special.
Scamp Dog
@Anya: nope, US Army.
Scamp Dog
@Anya: nope, US Army.
Anya
Little bit of an info from FAIR about the very serious impartial reporter, Jon Karl
Anya
@Scamp Dog: Thanks! We must have some Jarheads among us who can tell us if this is an impeachable offense.
Anya
@JPL: Maybe there’s something wrong with the link. I was just sending a link about Jonathan Karl’s rightwing history.
trollhattan
Has anybody asked Malthaus how many onion rings fit on an umbrella?
Her continued ability to remain employed is a thing of wonder. [hic]
TaMara (BHF)
@pat: Thank you. I cannot tell you how upset this made me when it started popping up on my FB page. I mean it’s one thing for my friends and family to be Republicans, but this was downright ugly. The “how dare he” bullshit really bothered me. I just posted that photo of the two Bushs on my page. That should shut them up.
kbsuttle
kos nails it over at the Great Orange Satan:
“is there anything more stupid than this?”
Keith
So the main takeaway is that Obama talks about umbrellas less than Ann Althouse talks about boxed wine.
Heliopause
Seems kind of stupid to take the best week that conservatives have had in a very long time and end it with this. If any conservatives are reading this let me concern troll you some advice; if you take the three scandals that are being taken semi-seriously and top them off with another one your idiotic invented scandals it’s going to make people start to suspect that the other three aren’t serious either.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mr Stagger Lee: Ah, the icing on my cake. Thank you.
Suzanne
This is my favorite scandal. I love this so much. It’s so transparently ludicrous.
Jennifer
Thank heavens Obama didn’t use Jessica Valenti’s breasts to shield himself from the rain, or Althouse would have a real meltdown.
cckids
@TaMara (BHF):
If facts would shut up Republicans, they’d never talk. But we can all wish.
TaMara (BHF)
@cckids: I should have phrased it, as it will either send them back under their rock lest their racism be exposed or they’ll just come right out and prove they are racist. Know them as well as I do, rock it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: ah, thank you! I was trying to remember that but I couldn’t think of any terms precise enough for a search, and the roster of Karl’s fellow alums is even worse than I thought.
najablah
Obama’s response to Umbrella-gate
SIA
Gotta love the photoshop. A+.
Every time I visit Althouse, my mind says, “Oh Ann. You never disappoint.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Tokyokie:
George W. Bush is not a ni*CLANG*. There you have it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anya:
As others have noted, John served (as have a number of commenters, to include myself) in the US Army. He’s posted pictures of himself showing off his GIANT pen1s substituted on treads (it’s called an Abrams tank).
I do not recall him ever posting a picture of himself in uniform holding an umbrella.
cckids
@TaMara (BHF): You’re lucky. Mine just find some other version of reality to deny. Racist, non-thinking, just infuriating on so many levels. It reminds me of arguing with a toddler, it is impossible to win.
Dee Loralei
I think the real “scandal” in all this is that the President of the United Fucking States had to ask for an umbrella in a downpour!
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: No, he was a tanker in the US Army, which might make him dumb enough to be a jarhead.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dee Loralei: I agree. My very first thought, the minute this “story” broke, was “Why in the world did no one come forward to hold umbrellas over the POTUS and Turkish PM the minute the first drops of rain fell?” I was embarrassed that the President actually had to make the request.
JWL
She’s both a law professor AND the eventual answer to the question:
“Why does the hearse horse snicker,
Hauling the lawyer away”?
Ruckus
@kbsuttle:
I’m sure we will find out soon.
Patrick
This reminds me of the fake outrage shortly after Obama took office. There was a picture of Obama in the Oval office without his suit jacket on. FoxNews and the idiots on the far right went nuts about such disrespect from the black guy. That lasted about 5 seconds when there was picture of Bush without a suit jacket in the Oval office.
These people can’t help themselves. They have such hatred for an African-American in the White House. The problem is that there have now been so many fake outrages that they simply have no credibility. The boy who cried wolf…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Part of the Reagan cult was that he wouldn’t enter or allow anyone in the Oval Office without a jacket and tie. Tweety liked to scream about it during the Time Of The Clenis . The fact that he ignored the whole separation of powers thing and actually broke the law in order to arm our enemies to fund thuggish “freedom fighters”…. well, didn’t he have a nice smile?
grandpa john
@Ruckus: well, since I am almost 76, I certainly don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, but I do hope for my grandchildren to experience it someday.
Suffern ACE
@Dee Loralei: yes. The staff kind of dropped the ball on that.
JWL
@Ruckus: Hmmm. For the record, I wish that nut a long and healthy life. It’s a karma thing with me. By no means was the “hearse horse” doggerel anything other than a innocuous (albeit snide) remark.
After all, every profession has its share of losers that somehow earn a living.
Ruckus
@grandpa john:
I’m a few years behind you and I don’t expect to see it either. Hope your kids see it and your grandkids get to actually enjoy it.
Ruckus
@JWL:
It would be nice to want a better life for my political enemies as well as friends but as they only want me and mine(and theirs too by the way) to suffer and die I’m not so sure that’s appropriate. I know myself pretty well, and I’m just not that nice a person.
JWL
@Ruckus: It’s that word, “enemies”. In the aggregate, I acknowledge the term (as in “the GOP is the American Fascist Party, and they are surely my political enemies”).
But as individuals? I did take The Sermon on the Mount to heart long ago, and life’s lessons have done nothing to diminish its essential wisdom.
Then again, I wouldn’t piss on G.W. or Dick Cheney if they were on fire. I do keep a mean spirited score, of sorts.
After all, I’m only human, too.
Ken_L
Amazing that the real issue only emerged at comment #101. If my faculty head was making a speech outdoors and it started to rain, there would be instant spontaneous steps taken to stop her getting wet. And if it was an important occasion, part of the preparation would automatically have included ‘what we do if it rains’ contingency planning. What kind of systemic incompetence is required to allow two fucking HEADS OF STATE to stand there in the rain and nothing happens until one of them asks for an umbrella please?
I’m starting to think American Exceptionalism means exceptional administrative incompetence, which is what you see in the IRS and what seems to have occurred at Benghazi and appears to be emerging in the implementation of national health care. Maybe everyone is so obsessed with scoring political points they forgot how to actually make institutions work effectively.
Ruckus
@JWL:
So we are discussing a matter of degrees then?
Ruckus
@JWL:
It’s a dog eat dog world and the dogs are winning right now. It might be better if they didn’t and they weren’t but that really hasn’t come to pass yet. So I’m willing to protect my pack with a little more vigor and less civility. Not sure if it is the right way but that sermon on the mount thing hasn’t gotten us very far has it?
JWL
@Ruckus: Farther than had it not been enunciated, I think.
Original Lee
Interestingly (to me, anyway), my retired Air Force neighbor is not bothered by Umbrellagate. He thinks there should have been a couple of interns holding the umbrellas instead of Marines, but he really is not fussed about it. Neither is he fussed about the IRS thing. He told me today that “that kind of thing has been going on for decades”.
No, what has him upset is that he has heard that John Kerry is actually a puppet frontman for a white supremacist group, who got Kerry to groom Obama for the Presidency. Obama is perfect because he’s a secret Muslim non-citizen, so they can get rid of him any time they want with no blowback. The white supremacists want eight years of Obama so that the n-CLANG will be brought so low that they will beg to return to slavery.
Oh, and he’s totally not upset with the concept of Hillary running for President in 2016. He doesn’t think she’ll get the nomination because her old commercials will be recycled to be used against her. He’s more worried about that dirty traitor, John Kerry, who is actually the guy behind Benghazi.
I wish I knew what recreational pharmaceuticals he has been enjoying lately.
TS
@Tokyokie:
It’s not both. Definitely not both.
Jay in Oregon
I’m sure there are many forms of Obama Derangement Syndrome, and varying levels of severity.
But I think we have the perfect litmus test; if you thought for even one second that this was in any way controversial, you are ODS-positive.
JR in WV
When there is an outdoor function planned, and it is in an area where it commonly rains, one should plan to cope with the rain. If that entails a Marine to hold an umbrella, then that’s the plan.
So glad it only took seconds to find a pic of GW Bush standing under an umbrella while the Marine holding it is getting soaked!
End of story.
xian
@Tokyokie: it is pretty revealing how these folks respond to any evidence of this uppity black guy getting a perk or being treated as a special person. They also seem to keep forgetting that he is the commander in chief of our military.