June 27, 2015

The President reacts to the news of the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage Obamacare decision.



More here, including the story of how the grandfather clock in the Oval Office stopped at the moment of the announcement, documented by a photo of the clock, which might thrill some soft-hearted folk but makes me want to say that clocks are always stopped in still photographs.

CORRECTION: I guess I wanted to think that's how Obama reacted to the same-sex marriage case... or it expressed how I felt. But it was the Obamacare case he was reacting to. The reaction is less remarkable. The Obamacare case was a big personal win for his administration.

32 comments:

SGT Ted said...

More here, including the story of how the grandfather clock in the Oval Office stopped at the moment of the announcement,

What bullshit.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Was he so happy because he now has a good enough reason to divorce his wife?

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

It said the ACA, not same-sex marriage.

Chuck said...

Shameless hypocritical pol; you opposed same sex marriage to get elected in 2008. What a hateful prick.

And if my anger seems out of proportion, it is only in reaction to this president's personal attitude(s) toward his opponents. That they are invariably corrupt, or malicious, or stupid. This president has set the tone.

David Begley said...

The Left romanticizes everything about Obama.

Supposedly his singing of "Amazing Grace" yesterday was spontaneous. It was all planned and planned to look spontaneous. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a naïf.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

This was his reaction to the healthcare ruling not the gay marriage case.

I was re-reading some of Sullivan's writings on this. When he first started advocating for SSM he got a lot of grief - a lot - from significant, or least, vocal elements in the gay community. They didn't want that bourgeois institution marriage!

It's interesting how both "sides" have changed. Although I think the gay left element - the Dan Savage types - probably still view marriage critically. They're just pretending that they want it.

Chuck said...

Hey, wait; scratch my comment above. This wasn't about the Obergefell decision at all, Althouse. It was the King v. Burwell decision. And I should have known that instinctively. The day that Obergefell was released, the president was on his way to Charleston SC.

Anonymous said...

Lest we forget, O'Bama supported Traditional Marriage in 2008 and only flip flopped in 2012. Here is what his advisor said on that in 2015 to make money.

“Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics,” according to Time.

“Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons.”


Every, and I mean every position the Won takes and every lie he tells is for short term political gain. If he was speaking today to conservative Muslims, he would find a way to lie his way back to traditional marriage.

JD said...

It was a high five sort of week for Democrats!

Jess said...

Many are celebrating the decisions. Most will lament the final results. Tearing the fabric of society leaves two sides; and the emotional responses become stronger.

Anonymous said...

PML said...
It was a high five sort of week for Democrats!


As long as people forget that every Democrat Party Platform leading up to the Civil War promulgated Slavery, and that after the war, the Democrats in Congress voted against 14, 15, 16, and 17th amendments. That Democrats wrote Jim Crow, burned black churches, lynched blacks, and denied voting rights.

Every one of the Southern Generals and Politicians that the SJW's want to dig up were Democrats.

Oh, and PS: Lincoln, and all the Abolitionists (Black and white) were Republicans.

tim maguire said...

Big win for his administration. Big loss for America. What's the difference

Lyle said...

Drill Sgt,

Bringing up Democrat and Republican history from 150 years ago doesn't explain why Dixiecrats like Strom Thurmond went from being Democrats to Republicans.

Static Ping said...

Barack is so opportunistic that it really is impossible to tell at this point what is genuine joy and what is staged for the cameras. For that matter it is impossible to tell what his true motivations are. His reaction here is literally useless information. This is made creepier by the fact that he does act like a normal human being, unlike Bill Clinton who could not only fake it but fake it with enthusiasm.

It would have been the same if it has been his reaction to the SSM ruling. It would have been the same if he was reacting to the Women's World Cup. Needless to say I wouldn't buy a used car from him.

Wince said...

I'm thinking more about Hillary's private reactions, especially to the same-sex marriage decision. Not her bullshit facade of celebration.

Objectively, I'd have to think this is a disaster for her politically.

Even to SSM supporters, she looks like a Johnny come lately hypocrite.

And she'll own Obamacare.

Jin said...

I believe we just need to respect each others opinions, and respect each others view on life. Let them live however they want to live, as long as they're happy and not hurting anybody.

Ambrose said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Awesome. Now Obama can finalize the redistribution of debt and Michelle Obama can continue her work in legal triage.

Scott said...

"The Obamacare case was a big personal win for his administration."

...in His continuing battle against the American people.

Stephen A. Meigs said...

I read somewhere (not totally sure it wasn't your blog) a few years ago that watches and clocks tend to be photographed (in advertisements, etc.) at 10:10 because that is considered the most artistic arrangement of the hands. That time is embedded in my brain because when I was a little kid and we took the day train (the Piedmont) to go south, I was always very afraid (compared with my parents) that we would miss the train, which left Alexandria at 10:10am.

I'd have probably posted something about how tyrannical the Supreme Court is, but this is the week my computer bit the dust and is (mostly) time to be replaced, which makes it hard to discuss my theories until I have my own computer again.

This is so much like Dred Scott--the Supreme Court once again intervening outside their proper sphere to make it more difficult for the enslaved to gain manumission--formerly it was chattel slavery, now it is the slavery caused by being sodomized. Formerly it was going to a free state that the Supreme Court wanted to ensure could not free a slave. Now what the tyrannical pro-slavery forces fear is the enslaved being embarrassed into freedom by the rescuing efforts of people who righteously believe that the artificial enslavement caused by sodomizing should not be likened to the natural affections that might cause a willingness to engage in a bond of marriage.

But gay marriage should not be a central issue--all people, married or not, deserve their affections to be natural and not caused by nastiness. The Godly thing for a church to do would be to focus on the evil of sodomy (semen in the digestive system, where it can have its addictive and pain-sensitizing effects), whether of males or females. But whorish pro-prostitution elements in the church want to make it seem that sex without male lack of commitment of resources (the commitment marriage mostly used to entail when it meant something, because commitment was effectively mostly not enforced merely as a result of having had procreative sex) is like sodomy; many churches encourage the defilement of people by teaching that being into sodomy is akin to not being naturally a really expensive whore (a female who by nature always opposes sex without having vast commitment of resources as in marriage), because most people see that it is a good thing to not be a really expensive whore--in fact morally that's even worse than being a cheap whore--which could cause them to think that being into sodomy is good as well. Sodomy makes people depraved. Sex outside marriage does not. Totally different issues, notwithstanding the issue is likely a stepping stone to substantial evil, such as restricting the free speech of those who dislike sodomy.

Rich males if selfish tend to want a society in which sex automatically entails male commitment, since this puts themselves at an advantage; they support society being pro-marriage (though polygamy suits them better than monogamy). Rich eligible women tend to especially prosper in a society that is the opposite. However, selfish women as a whole tend to want to make out (in personal interactions) like sex without male commitment is some horrible thing, just as selfish men would tend to want to make out that male caring (and commitment) is a selfish thing for a female to want in all cases, even if he should love her really well compared with others.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

This is so much like Dred Scott--the Supreme Court once again intervening outside their proper sphere to make it more difficult for the enslaved to gain manumission--formerly it was chattel slavery, now it is the slavery caused by being sodomized.

"Slavery caused by being sodomized"?

This is an absurd analogy, if we can even call it that.

Dred Scott was about taking away the rights of human beings; the decision said that Africans had no rights - none - in America.

This ruling on marriage says that states must recognize same sex marriages. Marriages freely agreed to by a same sex couple. Freely agreed to.

How can you compare the two?

Mark said...

Is the photo of his reaction to SSM or to ObamaCare?
Or does it matter? They are both the same, aren't they? So what if there are some fundamental differences between them -- they are the same! Photo equality! Because we said so, that's why, you bigot.

Objective truth really does not enter into things anymore, so why not simply decree that it is his reaction to SSM.

Real American said...

Caption: "Extorting Roberts worked again!"

Anonymous said...

There is some really good news from these two decisions. From Andrew Mcarthy and John Hinderacker this morning.

Conservatives are finally viewing the supreme Court for what it is. Not a legal institution but a political one. The four liberals on the court always vote as a bloc, especially on important legislation. No one wondered what their vote was going to be or even cared about their opinion. Did they even write one?

Now it's time for conservatives to realize the court is a political institution. What does this mean? It means we fill any vacancies with a voting bloc. Forget about finding legal minds to parse the deep meanings in jurisprudence.

Moving forward, there is a lot conservatives can do with this. Overturning older decisions for one. But for two, finding new rights in the Constitution. Most rights that conservatives want are already in the Constitution. But Hinderacker brings up a few more. Like our progressive taxation system.

Anonymous said...

How can you compare the two?

Because homosexuals are slaves to their lust. Of course, all of us are slaves to sin, and only Christ can set us free.

mccullough said...

That's the same look he has when he makes a four foot putt for double bogey

Smilin' Jack said...

I guess I wanted to think that's how Obama reacted to the same-sex marriage case... or it expressed how I felt.

Please--everyone knows that Obama embraced (eww!) gay marriage only from political expediency. He has his faults, but at least he knows as well as the rest of us that homosexuality is squicky.

Stephen A. Meigs said...

Slavery had very much to do with sodomy, in my opinion. When white men found it convenient to justify the domination they inflicted on their women folk via sodomy, they doubtless found it mighty convenient when arguing with the women they dominated to point at the appropriateness of chattel slavery of blacks as being strong evidence that slavery in general was appropriate, and in particular that male domination of women (as through sodomy) was appropriate.

It's interesting that later, after losing the war, those white southern men who were trashy controlling types adopted a rather opposite approach, trying to make white women think blackness is the dangerous nastiness white women needed to be scared of as opposed to sodomy, which largely explains segregation. It's not that hard to see why this opposite approach became a better option for nasty white males. White women no longer had any economic stake in slavery, and so they had become much less tending to agree that there be something wonderful about any of it.

Of course, racism was a part of all of it, as well, just not the only part.

It's revealing that the anti-slavery movement was tied up with the beginning of the women's rights movement in its beginnings. The antislavery movement actually was split over whether women should be allowed to be so bold as to speak publicly. My great-great-great grandfather's sister, Maria Weston Chapman, was in the camp that believed women should be allowed to speak publicly. But when she did speak the first time in the new speaking hall that the abolitionists had built in Philadelphia, introducing one of the Grimke sisters I think it was, immediately it started a great commotion in the mob and shortly bricks flew through the windows when Grimke spoke. When men like Garrison spoke, it did not particularly excite rage, but when women spoke and expressed solidarity with black women, it made for extreme rage. The meeting had to be postponed because the police were at first not supportive of the abolitionists, but the mob insisted on burning the building down not long after. Apparently it so affected Maria Weston Chapman that afterward she temporarily lost almost all her reason and sanity, with what the doctors of the time called "brain fever". But she before long came out of it, fortunately, to bravely continue her work. There's a new biography of the Weston sisters that came out last year that's very interesting. Apparently, my ancestor, their brother, Richard Warren Weston, had a drinking problem when he was young which limited him and was hard for his sisters to deal with. Good thing I don't drink! Anyway, one can see that much of the opposition to slavery even in the north seemed to more be opposition to the sort of thing that enslaves women (and sodomy is especially a tool for sexual enslavers).

There was probably a good deal of catty sentiment in the female abolitionists as well. The Three Little Kittens nursery rhyme was first introduced by Elizabeth Follen, an abolitionist in her own right and best friend to Maria Weston Chapman (they lodged together in Europe after their husbands died). Cats feeling love are especially into hating things to make sure they can hate things, as is a useful test because animals who are sodomized tend to feel (artificial) love for everything, making even justified hate difficult. And if for anti-sodomy kicks they kill something, well, they definitely want their paws to stay clean. A sodomized person is akin Queen Titania having been affected by Oberon's potion. No accident, probably, that Kipling put that part of A Midsummer Night's Dream right on Page One of Puck of Pook's Hill. In the old days, when any sort of explicit discussion about such matters was considered inappropriate, one had to be indirect in promoting wisdom there.

MayBee said...

The important thing is always how Obama feels about it!

Gahrie said...

The important thing is always how Obama feels about it!

It is why women identify with him so easily.

ilvuszq said...

" ... was a big personal win for his administration ... "
And a big personal loss for the nation. The supreme court is now a political organization because of the leftists voting as a bloc on the big questions. As for Roberts, he can't read.