November 7, 2014

"Be careful, 'I'm ready to love Obama' sounds a lot like the last line of a novel, a certain novel. JK/LOL."

Says tim in vermont, in the comments thread of the first post today where I quoted Meade (without context) saying "I'm ready to love Obama."

Meade intended the allusion to "1984," which ends:
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
If the allusion was intended, it should make sense. Surely, Meade didn't mean that he's finally beaten down to the point were he submits to Obama-as-Big-Brother. And it's Obama that just got beaten down. The idea, it turns out, is that Obama has loomed over us for years as a kind of Big Brother figure, but now he's cut down to human size. He's not so big anymore. He's a real person who needs love and who becomes lovable, at long last, to those who have resisted the cult of personality.

Stray thought that came to me reading that last paragraph of "1984": Obama should grow a mustache!

20 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

It is Movember.

Meade said...

Yes, let's ALL grow mustaches!

Meade said...

JK/LOL!

Henry said...

That would be awesome. Out with the old.

Wince said...

Meade said...
Yes, let's ALL grow mustaches!

A Dirty Sanchez............................. $3.50

I'm ready to love Obama.

"Asshole fucking for men over 45 ........ $1.00"

Bob Boyd said...

Hillary could grow a better mustache than Obama.

David said...

He should grow a mustache?

Not while some are saying that he already has a beard.

(I am not saying that, but in the interest of the joke I'm willing to point out that others do. Bad taste I know.)

Meade said...

Not that kind of love, EDH.

David said...

I grew a 'stache once. I was very proud of it.

It was, I now know, truly weird and awful. But then again, that was just the perfect look for me at the time.

Bob Boyd said...

Meade said...
"Not that kind of love"

I think you've summed up the message voters were sending to Obama in this election.

Meade said...

Overheard from Althouse: "I love the way the brothel menu is becoming a theme for commenter humor.

And betamax is even awake yet!"

Larry J said...

Obama never was big except in delusions of adequacy.

kcom said...

He doesn't even stand up straight any more. It seems like whenever I'm flipping through the channels and happen to see him he's slouched over a lectern somewhere. Looking old and gray. Not inspiring of confidence.

virgil xenophon said...

David@7:26/

NEVER apologize--especially when it has the added benefit (as Henry Kissinger used to say) of being true. LOL

Anonymous said...

Re: "Overheard from Althouse: "I love the way the brothel menu is becoming a theme for commenter humor.

And betamax is even awake yet!""

You think I could leave THAT pinata hanging?

tim maguire said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim maguire said...

While we're on about last sentences, your last sentence is a long way from becoming true. In what sense has Obama become lovable to those who have seen through him from the beginning?

He may be becoming a pitiable character, which he was always fated to be--a victim of the vapid adoring crowds that obscenely thrust him into a position he was clearly unready for. But lovable? No. Not yet.

lemondog said...

Yes, let's ALL grow mustaches!
Mustaches save lives

tim in vermont said...

I always thought that Big Brother looked more like Axelrod

Jim said...

Sort of like I was starting to warm to Bill Clinton when he got his Lab BUDDY. Then I found out that he had been warming to Monica. And that warm feeling sort of petered out.