The Bluestocking, vol XX: Obama, bad banter, and Oh! Gross!
Happy Friday!
As discussed on this week's New Statesman podcast, I think I'm finally getting into Europe. There was something epically weird about spending International Women's Day watching people argue about Boadicea and the Suffragettes, and their putative positions on the Common Agricultural Policy.
This week's newsletter is dominated by the beast that is the Atlantic's latest cover story, on Barack Obama's foreign policy. It feels odd to have a "favourite politician" - as a political hack, you are supposed to loudly proclaim your disdain for the whole lot of them on a regular basis, to demonstrate you are not part of the same hated Westminster bubble. But I do, and it's Barack Obama. Even when he does things I think are wrong, he is able to give an intelligent, eloquent explanation for them. He's also changed the image of the Presidency - just look at those photos of him and Justin Trudeau hugging babies. In fact, look at any photos of him with children. Projecting power no longer means projecting hypermasculinity (which can end up tipping into high camp). More on that below.
Also, here is a picture of the prime minister of Canada dressed as Han Solo on Hoth. You're welcome.
Until next week,
Helen
The Obama Doctrine
“Where am I controversial? When it comes to the use of military power,” he said. “That is the source of the controversy. There’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow. It’s a playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses. Where America is directly threatened, the playbook works. But the playbook can also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions. In the midst of an international challenge like Syria, you get judged harshly if you don’t follow the playbook, even if there are good reasons why it does not apply.”
There are so many interesting lines in this looooooooooong piece on Barack Obama's foreign policy, for example this: "Isis is not an existential threat to the United States,” he told me in one of these conversations. “Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.”
Then there's the slow realisation that Obama has consistently surrounded himself with big brains, some of whom are leading writers and thinkers on the topics they cover. His team is chock-full of people who are clearly bloody good at what they do: Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, his various chiefs of staff. The abundance of women on those lists of advisers is of a piece with the fact that he is, as a president, determinedly unmacho. He won't bomb somewhere just because it's embarrassing not to. He won't sign up to the agenda that the scariest threat to America is 1,000 guys in balaclavas with a black flag, when the things that will actually kill most of us are far more mundane and harder to fight.
Other things I learned: Obama wonders why America considers Pakistan an ally at all; he's not that enthused about Saudi Arabia either; Biden thinks Hillary is a hawk who "just wants to be Golda Meir"; David Cameron brings two men to sit on either side of him and look quizzical whenever he visits the White House. Oh, and Obama considers Isis to be like the Joker in the Dark Knight Rises - "It has the capacity to set the whole region on fire" - making me extra-sad that film was so bloody long, because Obama really had better things to do than watch the bit with the ethics puzzle on the boat.
Also: Obama is clever. Really clever. The thought of replacing him with a total muppet is now even more painful.
The Last Shadow Puppets
They don’t just have little to say on Everything — they also don’t have much to say about the record. They’re tired — yes, yes, I know that they’re tired. I’m aware because not only have they said it repeatedly, but the moment they run out of things things to say, Kane and Turner immediately devolve into a sort of secret language, like best-friend side chatter. In order to keep the conversation running, I try engaging in a little small talk.
“So, what else are you guys doing today?”
“Do you want to go upstairs?” Kane asks.
“No,” I respond, laughing nervously.
The boys’ publicist snaps to attention: “I did warn you when you arrived that they were on kind of a downward spiral.”
This piece, where a female music journalist has to put up with "banter" from two male pop stars, has stayed with me all week. Something in me revolts against the writer turning the interview into a discussion on the incident, and I am intrigued by my own sexism in that. Also with my instinct to say, "lighten up, he was only joking!" And if *I* feel like that - Arch-Duchess of the Feminazis as I am - I can only imagine what most people think. Sigh.
Dr Pimple Popper
The following day, Lee saw a patient with a benign fatty tumor that adhered stubbornly to the skin and she had to cut it out in pieces. A few hours later, a lipoma walked in, on the back of an exterminator named Ronnie, but the same thing happened; she deemed it a “dud.” The pressure to capture one good, hard pop on film was mounting.
Finally, in walked Geoffrey, a young guy in black athleticwear, with a smaller pilar cyst hidden beneath his short-cropped dark hair.
“Well, we haven’t got any really great pops like this yet, so we’re hoping that you’ll be one,” Lee told him. “Are you going to deliver or not?”
Geoffrey smiled nervously.
I know you're judging me, but I also know you're going to click this. And Dr Pimple Popper is right: this man's nose really is a "blackhead goldmine".
Quick links: Really interesting FT piece on stay-at-home dads, and the poor uptake of Shared Parental Leave. An uplifting blog on female friendships by Jess Phillips; Julia Davis interviews Bjork; Why you might not want a Chrome extension that changes every incidence of "Donald Trump" to "someone with tiny hands", The best bit of the NY Times's mega-interactive-longread-aganza on the 25 Songs That Show Where Music is Going is Marlon James on Kendrick Lamar's The Blacker the Berry. What it's like to read the internet if you have dyslexia: an interactive. My colleague George's great profile of Sadiq Khan.
Guest gif: Not gonna lie, I was looking for Obama gifs when I found this of Putin being all #masculinitysofragile
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