Barack Obama’s clever parenting to prevent his daughters from getting tattoos is getting press because it’s a fun story, but I think there is a reasonable argument that it also illustrates the problem with his Presidency, as follows:
The President’s plan for keeping his daughters from getting tattoos is getting “family tattoos” and showing them off on Youtube. This is obviously mortifying to any teenager – if they care about the negative consequence. Obviously the President’s daughters care, because they have been raised by loving parents, but I can think of all sorts of teenagers who would say “shyeah, whatever, Dad” and go ahead and get the tattoo anyway. Or, alternately, up the ante and play tattoo chicken by getting, say, a facial tattoo and daring their parents to try and match that when there are real social consequences to them for doing so.
In essence, the President’s strategy is predicated on his “opponents” giving a damn about the greater common good. I am sure that all readers can quickly reach the parallels inherent in this strategy with Obama’s negotiation tactics – at least during his first term – with the GOP.
Related Articles
27 users responded in this post
I disagree with your conclusion. He’s not using the “greater common good” by any stretch; he’s imposing his own set of values on a potentially dissenting other group by threatening public shame on them. If the dissenting group, as you have pointed out, does not believe that his set of values are the “greater common good”, then it is up to them to decide whether there is any shame to be had in opposing him.
You’re off here MGK. The analogy to how he’s dealt with Republicans doesn’t work here.
If he dealt with his children the way that he dealt with Republicans it would go something more like this:
Obama: Your mother and I don’t want you to get a tattoo before you turn 18, but if you must have a tattoo you can get a small one on your arm.
Hypothetical Teenage Daughter: YOU CAN’T STOP ME OLD MAN, I’M GOING TO GET A GIANT NETWORK OF TATTOOS THAT COVERS MY ENTIRE BODY, PIERCINGS ON EVERY SCRAP OF SKIN AVAILABLE, AND I’M GOING TO START DOING METH IN MY BEDROOM. AND IF YOU TELL ME NO, THEN I’M GOING TO SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD WITH A TANTRUM.
Obama: Now look, we can’t have the household shut down. So you can have the tattoo and a few tastefully done piercings, but absolutely no meth.
Hypothetical Teenage Daughter: SCREW YOU OLD MAN, AND FUCK THE TATTOOS AND PIERCINGS. NOW ALL I CARE ABOUT IS THE METH!!!!!
And .. scene.
“In essence, the President’s strategy is predicated on his “opponents” giving a damn about the greater common good. I am sure that all readers can quickly reach the parallels inherent in this strategy with Obama’s negotiation tactics – at least during his first term – with the GOP.”
Not to mention his foreign policy.
The Obama girls need to get fake tattoos — paint the dye on, something like that — and wait for their parents to follow suit with real tattoos.
Nothing too horrible, mind you. The permanent reminder of betrayal and public humiliation by their children will be horrible enough.
I’m pretty sure Obama would know if his girls got fakes. He’d just have to ask their detail if they ever went to a tattoo parlor.
I suspect I must agree with Jer’s scenario…
And the media would report on Jer’s scenario with something along the lines of”Bipartisan rancor stalls tattoo and meth plan; President, Daughters unable to reach deal”
Putting “opponents” in quotes in the last paragraph is perhaps more apt than you realize. Obviously, his daughters are not opponents. But Obama was elected with a sufficient majority in the Senate. His “opponents” weren’t GOP, but Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman.
And his own unwillingness to forego lucrative donations from corporations seeking to influence medical and financial regulation.
Idk I think it mostly demonstrates that he’s a douchey authoritarian, just like most of this country’s politicians and parents.
He can’t fix America cause he doesn’t give a shit about america, he gives a shit about being Da Baws.
Find me someone who doesn’t sit around freaking out at the thought that their kids might actually be human beings, maybe that person gives enough of a shit about other people to do anything about the myriad harms being done by sociopathic richers
It’s a pity that – if this happens – it probably won’t happen until some drunken Spring Break that happens years after they stop being the First Family. It’d almost be worth watching Faux News if I got to see them flip out about the current President having a tramp stamp.
I am now in favor of a constitutional amendment REQUIRING Presidents to get tramp stamps.
“Idk I think it mostly demonstrates that he’s a douchey authoritarian, just like most of this country’s politicians and parents.”
Someone wasn’t hugged enough as a kid.
Most people weren’t, because most peoples parents are douchey authoritarians.
Like for example, probably yours, and if you’re a parent, probably you.
Quick test: do you spend time planning ways to hurt and humiliate your children in the event that they make a decision which would otherwise in no way effect you? Congratulations, you’re a douchebag.
Well, at the ages they are, 11 and 14, there’s a pretty high chance that things they are particularly excited about, and want to get tattoos of will be things they may not like a lot later, and probably things that they would perceive as being less cool if their parents also got tattoos of, pretty much no matter how cool their parents are.
“God, mom, you’re such a DICTATOR!”
Please do not slander your parents as “authoritarians” if they did not force you to understand the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect.’
And, of course, you assume that the other people won’t decide that the Nightmare Scenario you’ve presented *is* the greater good. Maybe the President’s daughters think that tattoos are awesome on everybody and that Mom and Dad would look great with one.
I think all politicians should, with their name in trashy, cursive script. It would make it so much easier for the lobbyists, right? No more embarrassing moments calling your paid senator by your paid congressman’s name.
Alternate interpretation: President Obama treats his political opponents like children instead of respecting them as peers, and it goes over about as well as you’d expect.
No, they should get a tattoo of their code name given by the Secret Service.
Aha, I get it. All the USA’s budget problems would be solved if the President were to threaten the House AND the Senate with a good hard spanking…
@Mike Smith: My mother has always told my siblings and I, after we hit our teens: “Act like a child and you’re going to get treated like a child”.
@MonkeyWT: That’d be Radiance and Rosebud for Malia and Sasha, respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Service_codename#Presidents_of_the_United_States_and_their_families
I was about to jokingly ask if it’s really Secret Service policy to assign female family members stripper names to make them memorable, then I actually looked at the page.
Yes, yes it is.
@Mike Smith: Given how the GOP “leadership” in Congress announced after the 2010 midterm elections that their top priority – the thing that was more important to them than anything else whatsoever – was to prevent Obama from winning a second term, and that they continuously scream bloody murder about how any policy of theirs that the President decides to support is the most awfulest thing anybody ever thought of … they deserve to be treated like adults why, exactly?
The GOP is nuts. At least in Congress.
That said, I think that it is important not to make excuses for Obama. Of course there is a limit to what a sensible man could achieve working with the GOP. But a lot of the poop comes entirely from Obama:
– He hired asshats like Robert Rubin and Larry Summers to manage the economy. He let a Bush secretary of “defence” stay on.
– He has prosecuted the whistleblowers and initiated a global campaign of murder entirely on his own account.
– He tried to stay in Iraq and has accomplished it to a degree.
– He has savaged civil rights and expanded the police state.
Obama is an enemy of progressive and decent people everywhere. Yeah, so the GOP in Congress consists of people who should be committed. That doesn’t mean we should excuse Obama.