Like flat champagne


Some of my readers may wonder why I am not following Obama' travels and expressing my opinion about them with my usual panache. After all, he was in Israel, met with Palestinians, spoke in front of Berliners, etc. I expected to have a lot of opportunity for ironic observation. But to tell you truth, I'm no longer fascinated, thrilled or intrigued by Senator Obama. I think I more or less get the measure of the man and there is nothing interesting I can say about him anymore. He's like a glass of champagne from which all the fizz is gone. The colour is still nice, the liquid still cool to the taste but... you only drink it if you are awfully thirsty and there is no cold juice, or beer, in sight.

Maybe the media non-stop adulation has overloaded on the sugar. When I follow an American cake recipe, I always have to cut the sugar by at least 40% or the cake comes out sickeningly sweet and practically uneatable.

To quote Jane Austen, "pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked" and Obama's promising allure has now faded steadily as -- again in Austen's words-- "an affectation and a sameness" seem to be his main qualities these days, which "disgust and weary."

There may be some significance to the fact that I've gone from speaking of Obama in heroic dramatic terms to cake and drink metaphors.

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Later update from CR blog:

"Vast screens relayed his face to a flotilla of mobiles and cameras. Speaker stacks saturated the air with his voice. A hall of LCD mirrors stood between his flesh and mine; image cannibalising image, echo breeding echo. Obama’s rhetoric, too, was a hymn to superficiality. Pledges to halt poverty, discrimination and climate change replaced concrete policies with a glass pyramid of promises.

Obama’s truisms rang with the hollow comedy of Patrick Bateman’s pseudo-moralistic spiel against domestic violence and AIDS. Like Bateman in American Psycho, Obama lives as a construct; a referent; the crown prince untarnished by power. "

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Laterer update: (Alert: mega- embarrassment ahead)

Obama in a German gym, what a man!

Shortly after half past four and he actually arrives! Barack Obama is wearing a grey t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms – and a great smile!

"Hi, how’s it going?“ asks Obama in his deep voice. My heart beats...

Obama (with toned arms and a strong back) puts on his headphones.... He hums quietly. Then he jumps on a fitness bike. He pushes three times on the pedals – but then can’t be bothered with it.

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

Shortly before five o’clock Obama comes over and sits directly next to my cross-trainer on the mat. First he does 10 sit-ups, then stretches. Then he looks at his watch and says to his bodyguard: “It’s time, let’s go.” Quickly I ask: “Mr. Obama, could I take a photo?”. “Of course!” he answers, before asking my name and coming over to stand next to me.

“My name’s Judith” I reply. “I’m Barack Obama, nice to meet you!” he says, and puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!

Reading the above I thought to myself, this simply couldn't be true. But it is. Someone did actually write this description which could have been lifted from some breathless Harlequin romance and published it in a serious newspaper, not a satirical rag.