Dreaming about President Obama

The NYT expresses its undying devotion to Barack Obama via a piece written by author Judith Warner in which she discusses how she and other liberals she knows have dreamed about the Obamas (via ST reader Cump):

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. β€œI was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. β€œThis coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes β€” because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”

As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?

I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways.

Many women β€” not too surprisingly β€” were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: β€œMichelle had divorced Barack because he had become β€˜too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. β€œBarack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. β€œOften. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”

It doesn’t get any better in the comments section.

Quite frankly, after reading this I’ve come to the conclusion that the NYT is not even remotely good enough to be considered “fish wrap” nor birdcage liner anymore.

Ick.

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