Jim Treacher’s Blog That Is on the Internet: Oh, to be a fly on a beer mug….
h/t HotAir Headlines
UPDATE: We’ve stolen some laughs and enjoyed no small amount of schadenfreude over Gatesgate, and taken some well-deserved shots at Gates and the President, but I find this photo, subject of a “caption contest” at HotAir, kind of touching:
Sure, you can read some symbolism into it – Gates’ age and the exhaustion of his ideology, Obama’s obliviousness with its own peculiar vulnerability and therefore its pathos, Crowley the “public servant.” A painter could have done something with this subject (not “The Blind Leading The Lame,” though the title works…).
What’s as striking to me is how it puts the whole incident on a human scale in a way that the main event couldn’t. As I said in the HotAir comments, I think it’s a nice pikcha. Don’t know if I want to get complicated.
Comments 21
Excellent, Czar. Sadly, it’s been done–meaning I can’t create something similar using my own comedic talents (such as they are) and my own word balloons (such as they are).
July 31st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I believe that in the photo Skippy is muttering “You sure as shit know who you’re messin’ with now, flatfoot.”
July 31st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Careful Skippy…3 steps to go. One…
Steven from Indiana
July 31st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
August 1st, 2009 at 12:51 am
August 1st, 2009 at 12:52 am
@fuster: And the reason we should care about your personal problems with Jim Treacher? If he got into a fight with you once upon a time – on the net, or was it in “real” life? – how would that make him different from the majority of rightwing blog thread denizens?
August 1st, 2009 at 1:13 am
No reason at all why you should care, although I didn’t get into an argument with him.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:19 am
“I know a place where they serve cold beer- and Joe Biden and “President Lite” won’t be there!”
August 1st, 2009 at 9:44 am
Nice one, CKM. Let’s really blow fuster’s mind here (’cause there’s no fuster we love better), and speculate that if George W. Bush were the president in this photo, he’d be the one giving a hand to the guy with the cane.
But calm down, fuster. I suspect Bill Clinton would have done so too. For all his charisma from the podium, Obama just doesn’t have the sense of solicitude and — dare I say it — small, kindly services to his fellow man that many of his precedessors have had. In that, he reminds me of Jimmy Carter. And come to think of it, LBJ.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I think you’re right about Bush, JED – partly because, as you may recall from the Merkel incident, he’s a touchy-feely kinda guy.
However, there’s been some material being put out on the right about this photo that I find unseemly – predictable and forced readings that, if they were applied to a similar situation involving Bush or some other hate-figure of the left we would reject immediately. Crowley ended up being the one in the position to help Gates down the steps, Obie was out ahead. In my experience, sometimes, you’re the guy in Crowley’s position, sometimes you’re the guy in Obama’s: It doesn’t make you the Good Samaritan or an Evil Twerp, it’s just how things happen to turn out.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
But Dyer, if it was Obama some of your rightist wingmen would use the picture as proof that them thar black guys was ganging all together.
I do agree that Bush would have done the honors. He’s not a great man, but not a mean or ill-raised one.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
CKM — you’re quite right that too much should not be made of this. I do note, however, that for many people in senior positions, it’s a matter of personal character and lifestyle to not stride out ahead of their honored guests who may walk more slowly, but to deliberately slow their own pace and be solicitous of them.
We didn’t see the split second before this one, captured in digits. It could well be that Obama had just turned from observing that Gates was, in fact, being assisted down the stairs, and that his own participation wasn’t needed. I’m happy to leave it at that.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
@J.E. Dyer: You mean like this? photo.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:41 pm
@J.E. Dyer: To hyper analyze more — Gates has the cane in his left hand and Obama is on his left side – -so it makes sense that Crowley would be the one helping him. On the other hand, I was always taught that you don’t speed past your elders and do in fact stay either right in front of them so they have something to break their fall or on side or behind them to quickly grab them in the event they fall.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
JED, nkh – alright I confess I just love to hyper-analyze moments in time, and there’s no point in trying to quash the discussion that I myself encouraged by pointing to this photo and imagining symbolic readings.
Both of you make good points. To me, they emphasize the sense of Obama’s pathetic obliviousness. He looks like the lanky teenager at the family gathering who’s way too self-involved to remember his proper place, assuming he was ever taught it. The pathos derives from the near certainty that he’s got more and harder learning experiences like l’affaire Gates to come. The picture seems to catch him in the middle of a faux pas, a minor failure of manners and sympathy. It’s ironic in part because the entire event was meant to repair a much larger failure, yet in many ways reinforced the significance of that failure. Obama is caught in an “almost done/what next?” moment. That he bumbling the moment he’s in suggests bigger bumbles to come. “We’ve only just begun… to screw up.”
August 1st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
CKM
Great job posting the telling photo and initiating such a fine discussion.
You know the wonderful song, “The More I See You.” (Nina Simone & Oscar Peterson, among many others {Peggy Lee}, do it well.
The more I see 0bie the less I like, and the guy is on the f’ing telly every f’ing day with that droning voice of his. He went to all the best schools but nobody ever taught him that less is more.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Can’t see it in the photo, but what I loved about the beer party was the fact that Crowley was the one who came with an agenda. He wanted to learn more and perhaps get some help for his job of teaching policemen about how to avoid racial profiling, and he enlisted Gates to assist with his course. For the pols and the professor it was a symbolic occasion; for the policeman, it was an opportunity to get something done.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Margo! Good to see you, and such a handsome monster you’ve been randomly assigned, feet firmly on the ground! (If you tire of it, and have somehow missed our very fascinating avatar/gravatar discussions, let me know and I can help you get a new one.)
Crowley is well on the way to co-opting both BO and Gates, it seems. I’d also be surprised if he doesn’t already have at least a list of would-be literary and movie agents, presuming he hasn’t already entered into book and movie negotiations. Or he could look to a political career.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Maybe Sarah could use a running-away mate.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Margo…Great to see you here.
Steven from Indiana
August 1st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Do I know you?
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm