Sweetie
Obama’s terms of endearment
May 16, 2008 43 comments
Barack Obama seems to have a habit of calling women “sweetie”:
Back in Pennsylvania in early April, Senator Barack Obama took some heat for calling a female factory worker “sweetie,” in Allentown.
He did it again today at a Chrysler Plant in Sterling Heights, asking a reporter to “hold on one second there sweetie” when she asked, “How are you going to help the American auto workers?”
Obama later left a voicemail message apologizing to the reporter in question: ((From excitingly named station WXYZ, which just looks like someone lazily chopped off the nearest end of the alphabet.))
Second apology is for using the word ‘sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front.
“All kinds of people” — sure! No doubt Obama calls Dick Cheney “sweetie” when they cross paths on the Senate floor. ((And Cheney mutters back “Go fuck yourself” as usual.)) It’s easy to believe that Obama also uses “sweetie” as a pet name for Hillary Clinton, isn’t it?
The blogosphere has been buzzing inconsequentially, like a massive swarm of stingless and drunk bees, about what Obama’s “sweetie” really means. Is it just a charming tic he picked up in Kansas, or a cynical attempt to sound like a friendly diner waitress offering a coffee refill to a blue-collar customer — or does it reflect a profound sexism? It would be good for the Clinton campaign if it did reflect a profound sexism. But to argue thus you would first have to stipulate that sweeties are always and everywhere women, which sounds a little sexist itself. On the other hand, it would be useful if the Obama campaign could provide video of him calling a man “sweetie”. Everyone would love to see that, not excluding Rick Santorum.
My own intuitive impression, from watching the video of the Chrysler Plant incident, is that Obama reflexively called the reporter “sweetie” because she was not being in any sense “sweet”, but intruding bullishly on a photo-op moment (walking around a car!) rather than waiting for the scheduled Q&A. Thus, “Hold on one second there, sweetie” was an admirably elegant way of saying “Get out of my face, you lamentably rude person, and wait your turn.” But would he have used the term “sweetie” if the rude person had been a man? Or would he instead have said “Sir”, “dude”, or possibly “bitch”?
What name would you like Barack Obama to call you, readers?
There’s a big flashing warning sign saying: Don’t Go There when it comes to Obama and other black people. Likewise, what would the media have made of him saying ‘Yo, Blair’?
PS: This sounds like a variation on the local news story where some council official is allegedly threatened with a reprimand for calling people (oh, let’s be honest, calling women) ‘darling’, ‘duck’, ‘love’ (or variants such as the Bristolian ‘my lover’), ‘shug’ (as in sugar), ‘treacle’ and so on. I’m sure Team Clinton (and the Republicans) would want to turn ‘sweetie’ into a ‘character issue’, but given both groups’ involvement in the Lewinsky affair, they may be better off steering well clear.
Good point!
Thanks for bringing up “character issue”, which is an interesting phrase. Why, I wonder, is a propensity to start wars and order torture not widely thought to be a “character issue”, and one immeasurably more grievous than a liking for blowjobs or a habit of calling women by potentially patronising generic names?
Obama’s “Sweetie”. Much ado about nothing. I am sure this was nothing more than a casual form of endearment.
It’s much ado about very little – not quite nothing. Compared to the Iraq War, the near extinction of Great Apes, and the thousands dead in China, it’s just another sucker’s debate. But was it “appropriate”, “diplomatic”, “savvy”, or “smart” for Obama to use a diminutive term of endearment with a woman who is (however rudely) engaging with him on a professional level?
Those of us who use terms like “darling” and “sweetie” and “butterthighs” with our professional women colleagues may consider ourselves enlightened postfeminists who aren’t scared to show affection, tinged with irony and a touch of hip transgression – but we are walking that fine line between stupid and clever.
I’m not just walking that line, I’m straddling it.
Steven, thank you. Talking of ‘Yo, Blair’, there was Obama’s ‘Jay-Z moment, which elicted much comment.
What would I like Obama to call me? Bitter.
These things are of course contextual and atmospheric. If he had called a female subordinate “sweetie,” that would have been far worse.
Similarly, I asked in my blog yesterday whether I could denounce as racist a West Virginia man seen on the BBC news proudly showing off a sign he’d made asserting that “Obama looks like a monkey,” without myself having to give up calling George Bush “Chimpy.” Context is important.
What name would you like Barack Obama to call you, readers?
“ma’am” as a polite American would address a woman whose name he didn’t know. It’s a useful Americanism, like “you’re welcome”.
I would guess the habit of eg shop assistants calling people by endearments is more British than American – simply because Madam is too formal and only for very posh shops and the police. Ma’am is more relaxed sounding. I think it’s creeping into British speech now.
Obama should leave “sweetie” for his wife and female relations. And unless you work in an unposh shop in Britain so can call those you serve “love” or “hen”, you should leave “darling” and “angelface” to wives, partners and daughters.
I have been called “darling” by an immigrant officer at Heathrow.
What would I like Obama to call me?
Vice-president.
I don’t care what Obama calls me, as long as he calls me.
affection, tinged with irony and a touch of hip transgression
That must’ve been what Mel Gibson was reaching for…
Somehow sweetiegate doesn’t sound right: can we persuade him to say ‘sugartits’ next time?
It’s a useful Americanism, like “you’re welcome”. […] Ma’am is more relaxed sounding. I think it’s creeping into British speech now.
What I’d prefer is that Americans keep their Americanisms to themselves, and Brits stop adopting them. That goes for most things other than language as well, such as foreign policy, economics, political campaign styles, and culture. ‘Cheers’, ‘No problem’, or ‘No worries’ are all infinitely preferable to ‘You’re welcome’. Welcome? Fuck you.
And unless you work in an unposh shop in Britain so can call those you serve “love” or “hen”, you should leave “darling” and “angelface” to wives, partners and daughters.
I’ve been called ‘love’ or ‘boss’ or ‘mate’ by more shopkeepers than I can count, and I’ll take it any day over the transparently phoney ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, extruded through wide, white smiles from bland, pasty American salesfaces.
I have been called “darling” by an immigrant officer at Heathrow.
Really? Where’d he emigrate from?
“You’re welcome” is an Americanism?
Gosh, it seems so.
Well, I never knew that. Luckily, I love Americanisms. You feel me?
Hey! We don’t MAKE you say our words. Just for that we hereby take back “weekend”. And while I’m at it, a bonnet is a hat and not a car part.
Culture? Mike wants Americans to keep “Americanisms to itself” and for the British to stop adopting them, including “culture”?
Would the rest of Britain be so quick to toss their Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, Miles Davis, Public Enemy, Eminem, Beastie Boys, Beach Boys, Doors, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Sly and the Family Stone, Nirvana, Nina Simone, Pearl Jam, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, REM, Metallica, Eagles, Wilco, Tina Turner, Killers, Strokes, White Stripes, Rage Against the Machine, Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Gershwin, Iggy Pop, Bernstein or, indeed, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns’n’Roses, Foo Fighters and Beck records collections onto a bonfire, lit with the kindling of their simmering Justin Timberlake, Moby, KISS, Alice Cooper, Philip Glass, Ghostface Killah, Smashing Pumpkins, Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond, Macy Gray, Sufjan Stevens, Nada Surf, Michael Jackson, and, of course, Johnny Cash, Blondie, and Madonna CDs? Even Meat Loaf? Nobody gets rid of The Loaf.
Will the rest of Britain join Mike in never, ever watching Seinfeld, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Sopranos, West Wing, Six Feet Under, Californication, Arrested Development or any other American television shows polluting the British airwaves? Will the cinemas ban the miasmic works of such creatures as Scorsese, Coppola (pere or fille), Tarantino, Lee, Allen, Altman, Lynch, Spielberg, one or both of the Coens, Apatow, Huston, Anderson, Anderson, Baumbach or Ford? Should Waterstones purge itself of Philip Roth, Hemingway, Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett – and any others? Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Wright, Twain, Melville, Auster, or Mailer?
Doing all this – while studiously avoiding those Brits who are too influenced by things American (like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Guy Ritchie) – will give Mike a lot more time to ponder what it is to be purely British, untainted by the nefarious reach of American culture. A lot more time.
Perhaps during this time, he could explain what exactly a British foreign policy and economics would look like without the influence of Americanisms? Would it bear any resemblance to the foreign policy and economics of the previous five centuries, which involved milking the globe dry, while setting the stage for global exploitation of resources, while preparing lesser colonial souls for a future in which they would thrash Britain in all its native sports, or would it be something different and pure and good, based on the economic principles of Bono and Wilde (in Soul of Man Under Socialism)?
There is a perfect word that comes to mind, which is not Unspeak, and which I think finds a linguistic home somewhere in the outskirts of London, but has its etymological roots deep in American soil: cockmuncher.
Thanks very much for all the Black music, Phillip Glass, Twain, and the repeats of Seinfeld.
Now bugger off. And have a nice day.
You know, I agreed with almost all of sw’s rant until we got to the economics and politics. At that point, I really don’t know what to say to him.
Except that perhaps Britain might have a foreign policy, and that, as far as I can tell, the main ‘Americanism’ in geopolitics was* a sort of undeclared colonialism. Enthusiastic milking of resources and strutting on the stage of global exploitation have been remarkably popular pastimes for both nation states, in different decades.
* now partly abandoned in favour of the old fashioned land-grabbing kind.
also, what exactly is the difference between a word’s linguistic home and its etymological roots? Are you saying the word has moved to a new address? Perhaps it’s just passing through.
Richard, my point is not that Britain doesn’t have a foreign policy or economic visions. It does! Rather, I wanted to ask, quite seriously, what British economics and foreign policy would look like without “Americanisms” – a complicated, strange, but not uninteresting question, even if posed in a dull, boorish way by Mike. Who will have a lot of time to think about it once he has purged his life of Americanisms. However, I tried to add the caveat that the answer should not indulge in his sort of sloppy, caricatured reductionisms (which I had hope to challenge with my own condensation of British foreign policy and economics into its history of colonialism – which in turn I hoped to show was ironic through the overworked image of England losing at cricket to India or Pakistan yet again). Apparently, I didn’t make myself clear enough here. I’ll assume, Richard, that you speak for the Unspeak community in not getting that point. Your own response, however, shows that I clearly did not make my point in any way. After insisting that Britain does “have” a foreign policy – I agree; it does – you then wander into a description of Americanism as
Like most banal reductionisms, this is not without its truths, but as a simplification has serious problems. If you are going to use “colonialism” to encompass American neoconservative policy in the Middle East, then “colonialism” becomes a pejorative catchphrase for any sort of interventionist meddling. It’s a bit like that redhead in Life is Sweet running her fingers through her hair and calling everybody “Fascist.” And it mistakes neoconservative American policy in Middle East. I am enjoying Gilles Kepel’s The War for Muslim Minds, and am glad that he resists simplistic notions of “colonialism” in understanding – particularly – American neoconservative policy.
Yes and yes! Precisely. I am making the unsubstantiated but poetically true claim that “cocksucker” is an American word that has found a new home in the UK, courtesy of Peep Show, in the word “cockmuncher”. As a romantic who loves migration, immigration, cultural diffusion, and miscegenations of all sorts, I get excited when this sort of thing happens.
Speaking as another member of the Unspeak™ Community™, I still don’t understand either the question or the possible answers to it (for all their deliberate caricature or sophisticated irony) at #16. Might you elaborate even further? By saying, perhaps, what things might count as “Americanisms” in British economics and foreign policy?
Meanwhile, on the matter of “You’re welcome” being an Americanism, it strikes me that in several other languages the polite response to “Thank you” is “Please”.
An alternative in English, “Don’t mention it”, has always struck me as rather aggressive. They just did mention it!
“The pleasure is all mine”, on the other hand, seems rather selfish.
So what can an anti-American Anglophone say in response to “Thank you”?
I assume you are not addressing this to me? I don’t know what these “Americanisms” are. I’m not entirely sure I believe in the coherence of the category of “Americanisms” at all. Perhaps you, Steve, could offer some suggestions as to what Mike means. After all, I was only responding to:
This is where the idea of “Americanisms” in “foreign policy, economics” is introduced. In your response to Mike, posted well before mine, you evidently didn’t think this sentence was worth commenting on, so one may assume that you felt that it was sufficiently understandable, coherent, sensible and possibly even correct – certainly not worth critiquing or, to use an Americanism, “calling out”.
My own response – full of what you sneeringly call “deliberate caricature or sophisticated irony” – was first to ask exactly the same question:
This would educate us as to what Americanisms are in British foreign policy and economics. As for the rest – well, you are probably right to scoff at it as “deliberate caricature or sophisticated irony”. More than anything, it was just to poke back at the dreary xenophobia informing Mike’s sloppy logic, and say, “Stop crawling back into a shell of isolationism, of blaming the US, and of falsely generous “debt forgiveness” programmes (who is GB to forgive so much of its former lands for their poverty? Who should be asking forgiveness from whom?)” So yes, I’ll stand back from that: yes, it was deliberate caricature – ironic? Nah, probably more bitchy than ironic. So I withdraw some of what I say to Richard.
As usual, sw, I did not intend the offence you are taking: I was merely signalling my acceptance of your own characterization of what you had written. You see, in #20 you explained that the end of your #16 was supposed to be ironic, which theretofore hadn’t actually been clear to me, nor apparently to Richard. So, while allowing that that passage was deliberately caricatured/ironic etc, I was expressing my view that it somehow seemed nonetheless to evince an opinion on what might count as an Americanism in British foreign policy and economics, and was expressing my interest as to what you thought on the matter. I am very sorry for assuming you thought something and asking you what it was.
For myself, since you, in your admirable hermeneutic generosity, wish to read something other than mere laziness or haste into the fact that I very often to do not comment on every single aspect of another commenter’s previous comment — I did not initially comment on this part of Mike’s comment because I couldn’t be bothered, for which apathy I crave your indulgence. Nonetheless, what he seemed to me to be saying was that Britain had adopted US foreign policy and economics: he was no longer talking about “Americanisms” at that point.
It was you — or so it seemed to me, for which seeming I beg your forgiveness — who changed this into the more subtle and confusing (to me) question of whether British foreign policy and economics had been infected by “Americanisms” and whether they could be purged of such. This you called a “complicated, strange, but not uninteresting question”, which had me thinking that you did have some idea what might count as an answer to it. For leaping to this assumption I apologise abjectly.
So what can an anti-American Anglophone say in response to “Thank you”?
No worries, mate. She’ll be right.
Fair enough, Steve – your apologies are accepted, however hamstrung they are by a bitchy overwriting not seen since my own last posting on this blog.
In answer to the unasked question: what would an English person look like who has given in to the Americanisms so loathed by Mike? I think that this Americanised English person would cut a figure remarkably similar to Peep Show‘s Jez – caught as he is between Nancy and Big Suz. So, the Americanisation of British Foreign Policy and Economics is best conceived by considering which policies are Mark-like and which are Jez-like. Superhands represents Europe.
This is not meant to cause any personal offence to you, sw, and I hope in my very bones that it will not be taken as such, but I have always found the terms “overwriting” and “overwritten” uncongenial, putting me in mind as they do of a sort of patrician champion of aristocratic mediocrity saying: “By all means write, dear fellow, if you must; but don’t try too hard.”
Not being a follower of Peep Show, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage regarding your analogy.
I’m not going to add more words to this except to say: thanks for clearing that up, sw.
I agree that neither the invasion of Iraq nor that of Afghanistan fits easily under the rubric of colonialism, although it seems pretty clear to me that the intention was to install puppet governments that would be more congenial to US interests and, in the case of Iraq, would guarantee a regular flow of oil and profits in the direction of the US, or at least the private business concerns of Bush’s cabinet members, which is fairly old-school as colonialism goes. It would take some truly surprising revelations to persuade me away from this view.
Richard, do take a look at Kepel’s aforementioned book. I have no reason to think that Kepel is entirely, 100% correct, and nor am I expert enough to point out where or how his analysis is grossly incorrect, but I do think that “colonialism” really misses a lot of key issues, including Neoconservative views on Israel and the Neoconservatives’ antagonism towards various Muslim movements – and they were not always incorrect in their assessment of some of these movements, but were blinded by their oil-drenched colleagues and their own miscalculations into misidentifying key figures and misunderstanding world events (this sort of thing played out on a public stage when the Bush administration conflated Al Qaeda and Iraq; this was not simply subterfuge – although it surely was that, too – they were also mangling their history, their “intelligence”, and their comprehension of global events). Sure, there is base greed involved; I don’t disagree with you there. Sure, US dependence on foreign oil is a necessary historical precursor to this war; I don’t disagree with you there either. But “colonialism” unspeaks these other things. It turns the civilian-killing misadventure in Iraq into something historically familiar and despised by the right sorts, without having to grapple with the complexities and the stickier problems associated with it. That’s Unspeak, pure and simple. And on this web-site, Richard, we may tolerate racism, we may tolerate sexism, we may tolerate all forms of bigotry, indeed we may celebrate many forms of ignorance, cruelty, and, in some of the threads I am not involved in, despicable acts of sexual perversion, but we do not tolerate Unspeak.
Steve, perhaps we could have a way of troll-rating or otherwise flaming somebody who engages in Unspeak on this site? Sort of an Unspeak Heretic flag that would turn their comments red or that puts “UNSPEAKER” beside their tag?
Just to be ENTIRELY CLEAR, given how unclear I may have been earlier in this thread: from “And on this web-site, Richard . . .” on, I am teasing.
I do not think that this web-site promotes bigotry, racism, sexism, ignorance, or cruelty.
For a couple of hundred years the British have denounced Americanisms coming into their language, but the Americanisms have integrated, assimilated and been accepted as natives. “Commuter” and “babysitter” are examples. “Having a good time” was an Americanism once. I don’t know how far back Mike wants to go back to ethnically cleanse the language but he might find that he was deporting words that were doing useful jobs.
Hot damn, that’s an excellent idea. I shall look into it. Perhaps an image of a really ugly lolcat would do the trick?
As for colonialism: it’s a bit like empire, you feel me?
Nicely put! (Of course, we are using “”””ethnically cleanse”””” in multiple sets of scare quotes.) Once he’s finished with the Americanisms, though, he’ll then realise he has to start on all the damn French. When will it end?
Not quite feeling it yet. I’m stuck on Lenin’s definition of imperialism as the last, most refined iteration of colonialism.
I’m intrigued by Kepel’s book, but I fear that if I read it, it’s going to reduce my respect for the neocons even further, and I’m not sure the sides of nature would sustain such a thing.
I meant that the words were alike not in their meaning precisely, but in that their application to current events can sometimes or even often obscure more than it illuminates, allowing unique complexes of issues and events, as sw notes, to be comfortingly stuffed into a ready-made box.
Kepel’s book is interesting, though worthy of a few lolcat UNSPEAKAR™ stickers itself, eg:
Where he is really good is on the recent history of and currents of thought in the Middle East (this is his academic specialty). I’m not so convinced myself by his analysis of US government intention and action.
Elaborate, please? I don’t find myself “convinced” but it is in part because he very carefully treats the neocons as a respectable bunch, and so doesn’t countenance how sordid, smug & cocky they were in their mid-1990s policy circle jerk. His own refusal to get gossipy and bitchy about them forces him to leave out a large part of the puzzle: the neocons are complete cockmunchers. Or, to make use of more Peep Show lingo, they’re jizzcocks and piss kidneys.
Yes, I noticed that too. But then now I notice UNSPEAKARs everywhere, almost as a subconscious reflex ever since you injected the Viral Unspeakadar into my frontal cortex – or hammered it into my frontal cortex, bludgeoning it through my skull with blow after Unspeak blow.
I think the idea that “neocons” somehow homogeneously drove policy is a bit of a canard. Cheney is really not a “neoconservative” as that term is usually used. PNAC was not really a “neoconservative” manifesto. This is quite provocative as an alternative analysis.
Interesting. Reading Palast’s piece linked in 37…
…one would never guess that Iraq, in fact, re-joined OPEC in September 2003 (http://www.slate.com/id/2088892/). Isn’t it possible that Chalabi being hunted by his own government had nothing whatsoever to do with OPEC?
Anyway. Of course what drives the policy is money and power, as always; nevertheless, the neocons certainly do have a role: to provide ideological justification. Priests play an important role.
Iraq never actually left OPEC: it just wasn’t allowed to sit while it was being blown up with the big bombs and had no government to speak or Unspeak of. The whole point of Palast’s story depends on Iraq remaining a member of OPEC, doesn’t it?
In the rest of the paragraph from which you quote, he seems to be arguing that although, as he says, the given charge against Chalabi was spying for Iran, it was possibly more than mere coincidence that at the same time the government also took the opportunity to shut down his Governing Council and replace the oil and trade ministers.
As for the “neocons” — yes, in a way one can conceive of them as useful idiots themselves, providing a patina of politicoethical rationale for everything.
Kinsley’s piece links a more detailed Noah’s article on Iraq/OPEC: http://www.slate.com/id/2088602/
I don’t think there have ever been any doubts that Iraq will stay with OPEC; the fact that some particularly crazy wing of the neoconism dreamed of hurting the Arabs by destroying OPEC seems like a minor curious story rather than this Palast’s battle of giants.
Far as them being useful idiots, I actually think they got quite a lot out of it. Not necessarily what they expected, but still a lot.
Palast does see the oil thing as central (the catchphrase from his book is “It’s all about the oil. But what about the oil?”). It seems more sensible to see it as one determining factor (but not necessarily a “minor and curious” one) in a multiply determined event. I also find intriguing the Stratfor line that the war was basically aimed at Saudi Arabia to coerce them into cleaning up their relations with terrorism. But these things all intertwine, as demonstrated by the recent spectacle of Bush begging the Saudis to make more oil, and the Saudis telling him to fuck off. I expect Cheney was sniggering at that one.
Peter Dale Scott’s “Road to 9/11” is pretty damn good on the whole subject (he also wrote the best book about the JFK assassination too for my money). He’s always been a lone voice in the conspiracy literature pointing out that anyone spending their time on specific “It woz X that woz responsible for Y” theories is missing the wood for the trees, and the whole network of interconnections is itself the real story (this is particularly obvious in the case of JFK obsessives, who have spent more than forty years assembling an amazingly interesting and well-documented body of historical evidence documenting the relationships and connections between American politics, business and organised crime, but still think they’ve failed because they haven’t solved a cheap whodunnit).
“I think the idea that “neocons” somehow homogeneously drove policy is a bit of a canard.”
Agreed. Such an analysis of US foreign policy really frustrates me as it ignores the institutional factors that influence it and the guiding assumptions that have sustained it since World War 2.