Discussion UsefulNotes / BarackObama

Is there a particular reason why the "succeeding George W. Bush and followed by Donald Trump line" was removed? (The guy who did it - prgiordano - left no edit reason, and it happens to have been his first ever site edit, so I'm a little leery of the motives for doing so.)

Soooo... why are there tropes for Obama?

We don't trope real-life people. As far as I know, a Useful Notes page can have tropes that apply to fictional portrayals of a real person in works, but not troping his life like he's a work.

They've been here since the page was locked which implicitly tells me that the mods didn't think anything was wrong with them.

You should add "preceding Donald Trump", no?

The Biographical film was a joke for the white house correspondents dinner. It is irresponsible having it in the article.

Wasn't the Spielberg's Obama clearly a joke? That info on the page shouldn't be there considering it's never been followed up and it was clear in the video it was a joke

Removed this example, because it's not a trope. Is there a better place?

• Grammy Award: Two. Best Spoken Word Album, for the audiobooks of Dreams from My Father (2006) and The Audacity of Hope (2008).

I think we should add a few items to Self-Deprecation and a couple of others to reflect his appearance as guest co-host of the Colbert Report, especially during The Decree.

Can we create a Quotes page for President Obama again since the 2014 election is behind us now?

Obama's election to the U.S. Senate

It's mentioned in a couple of the tropes, so some detail might be useful.

Jack Ryan was Obama's first Republican opponent. Ryan, then Illinois Attorney General, had a problem with his name. The Governor was George Ryan — no relation to Jack — who was tied up in a nasty corruption scandal at that time (and recently got out of the Federal Pen at Terre Haute). Incidentally, it's a long story, but Ryan's corruption can be directly tied to the deaths of six children. Anyway, there were undoubtedly people who confused the two Ryans.

However, Ryan's real problem stemmed from his messy divorce from actress Jeri Ryan (who is best remembered for playing Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager. The couple asked to have the divorce records sealed, but during the Senate campaign, the <I>Chicago Tribune</I> and the ABC television affiliate in Chicago petitioned the court to have the records unsealed. While this was going on, the heads of the Illinois Republican Party asked Ryan if there was anything damaging in the records. Ryan said that there wasn't.

Well, the records were unsealed, and there were allegations from Jeri accusing her ex-husband of taking her to sex clubs and trying to pressure her into having sex in front of others. Ryan's lie about the records infuriated the Republican leadership, especially Judy Barr Topinka (the head of the party in Illinois) and then-US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert. If they had known what was in the records, they could have easily spun it as the wild accusations of an aggrieved ex-wife; but Ryan's lie was unforgivable.

Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from the party, and then the party scrambled to find a replacement. They had a number of problems:

• The Illinois Republican Party is split fairly evenly into two factions. There are the extreme conservatives, led (more-or-less) by Jim Oberweis; and the moderately conservative, led at that time by Topinka. Oberweis, who had finished second in the Republican primary to Ryan, wanted the job, but Topinka, who loathes Oberweis, vetoed it. The party leadership agreed that Oberweis had not a prayer of winning. Oberweis had also been fined by the Federal Election Commission for appearing in commercials for his company, Oberweis Dairies, during the primary campaign. (Topinka had some interest in running herself, but Oberweis, who loves Topinka as much as she loves him, killed that.)

• Two men who would be obvious candidates, former Governors Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar, each of whom was reasonably popular (especially Thompson), both said they would not run. Various others were approached, including former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, but either they turned it down or they were not seen as viable candidates. One leading possibility, Orion Samuelson, turned it down because (1) he was recovering from recent major surgery, (2) his wife was not keen on the idea and (3) he had no money.

Ryan quit the race at the end of June 2004, and the Republicans went all through July without a candidate, leaving Obama to campaign unopposed for over a month.

Finally, at the beginning of August, Alan Keyes became the candidate for reasons that are unclear. (See http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/Alan%20Keyes%20to%20run.htm for a typical reaction to Keyes' entrance into the race.)

Keyes lives in Maryland, and had no actual connections to Illinois. It did not help that in 2000, Keyes attacked Hillary Clinton for running for US Senator from New York even though she had never lived there, calling her a carpetbagger. So, of course, he was asked how his running for the Senate in Illinois differed from Clinton's running for the Senate. He did not have an answer.

Keyes did not run a good race. He egregiously misstated Obama's stand on abortion, saying that Obama's support of abortion extended to support of infanticide. Almost no one believed it, and the Democrats legitimately said that he was lying about it, which people did believe.

In a debate with Obama that covered gay marriage and gay adoption, Keyes said that because of sperm donor anonymity, a hypothetical lesbian couple could adopt a child who would be unable to determine who his or her father is and therefore would be put at risk of marrying a sister or brother. Of course, this argument could be made about all pregnancies with anonymous sperm donors.

Keyes came off as a homophobe, defining homosexuality as centered in "selfish hedonism". When asked if Mary Cheney, Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, fit the description and was therefore a "selfish hedonist", Keyes replied, "Of course she is. That goes by definition." He said "granting homosexuals the right to marry is like granting plantation owners the right to own slaves".

Keyes also got little support for his remark that "Jesus Christ would not vote for Obama", especially since it gave Obama to make an excellent speech about the place of freedom of religion in American politics.

The bottom line was that Obama got 70% of the vote and Keyes went home to Maryland.

I just pulled this entry from the page:

• Arch-Enemy: Vladimir Putin.

It's ZCE and I think we ought to keep the page about media appearances and the like, not necessarily day-to-day politics.

The "Obama Curse" seems more fitting as an example of Madden Curse instead of Touch of Death as it's currently listed: something being mentioned by someone famous, and then suffers misfortune.

Someone should add how Bush and Obama are present in My Name Is Khan, going so far as "Obama" adressing directly main character.

Obama is 52 years old now.

Okay, so I see Barack has his fair share of fangirls (and possibly fanboys as well), since this page seems to praise him to the point where you can almost here the Squee in the editor's tone. I understand that politics is prime Flame Bait, but it seems very unreasonable to just shoot down every negative comment (no matter how legitimate) there is to make about him. Not even a YMMV tab to admit he's a Base Breaker or walking Flame Bait in his own right. No need to call him The Scrappy though (as noted in the aforementioned fanbase, he clearly isn't), but still; judging by the comments above me, it seems we could do well to unlock this page and really do some work on it.

I know it's locked because of bias potential and all that, but maybe we want to mention his re election in 2012?

Someone needs to add that Obama is now being played by fully-black Jay Pharoah on SNL.

Hey, I just saw an article in Washington Post about Obama's road to victory this year. Here's the link of you want to check: Basically, Obama just steamrolled Romney (their word, not mine) until Romney beat him majorly in the first debate. That evened the whole game until the election. Now, here's the catch: Obama's aides had been urging him to practice his debate, knowing that Romney would put all his remaining cards in the first debate. However, Obama was so (in hindsight, over-) confident that debate wouldn't have mattered with his lead, so he didn't take the lesson seriously. And then we know what happened afterward.

Here's the thing: is this Cassandra Truth or Break the Haughty?

Can someone please add to either the Black and Nerdy or One Of Us pages that he's apparently a fan of Mean Girls if this is any indication:

His current age is now 51.

can i please add "he's also a lefty" under the southpaw entry?

Is there really a compelling reason to have examples on a page like this? I'm hardly the guy's biggest fan (or biggest enemy - more like ambivalent), but even I can see the problems this leads to. And judging by the edit history and state of the page as it is now, it looks like they're more than active.

...in fact, taking one look at the page for George W Bush, there's no precedent for having examples of tropes. Despite Bush being just as polarizing as Obama, there is no list of tropes he inspired, merely works of fiction. In light of that, I find no reason for the page to have any trope examples at all. Obama's not that special.

Honestly, Five-Man Band?

This trope is much abused on too many pages; is there really a good justification for it to be here?

The second entry in Embarrassing Middle Name seems to belong to a different trope.

I'm going to make another call to unlock this to new edits. What we've got right now is a fossil page from January 2008 which is increasingly inaccurate for how Obama is perceived and depicted.

The spoiler in the Cold Case entry should be nixed, as it's irrelevant to the entry.

Black and Nerdy: Add recent photo op with Nichelle Nichols. Catch Phrase: Add "Fire It Up". Conspiracy Theory: Add that Cleveland was not only elected President while holding dual citizenship, but he even did it twice. Curb-Stomp Battle: Change "suggested why" to "suggested this is why". Deadpan Snarker: Add "Brush that dirt off my shoulder" visual snark from 2008. Also add his mortgage relief press conference on Super Tuesday 2012, stealing fire from the hotly contested Republican primaries/caucuses. Five-Man Band: Biden doubles as a lancer, too; pre-office, he had a reputation for snark that makes Obama's look like a Sesame Street bit. (And wouldn't Hillary be The Chick?) Is This Thing Still On: Add recent overheard Israel/Iran strategy gaffe.

for the "wrong sylLAble" trope, change the correct pronunciation to "ba-ROCK" and note that on Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson mispronounced his first name as rhyming with Mac (and said the surname first).

How come...

• 1.) The last 20 edits on this History page are all done by a mod?
• 2.) It's locked?

Need to change the Royal Canadian Air Farce wick. It is not filed here under the Series/ tag.

These entries have to be expanded according to How To Write An Example:

• The Charmer
• Hot Consort

Another example for Black and Nerdy: He follows Aperture Science on Twitter.

I want to add a little correction. The article says Barack also means "blessed" in Hebrew. While that's certainly a beautiful meaning, it's not a Hebrew one in this case. Barack is actually an Arabic name, باراك Bārāk, meaning "blessed". It does have a Hebrew cognate name, but that's ברוך "Baruch". In Hebrew, ברק "Barak" means something different entirely — "lightning".

I wanted to add:

• Sham Ceremony: Averted. His swearing in was slightly off due to the Chief Justice screwing it up, so they redid it later to prevent nuts from claiming he wasn't president.

But this is locked. Any chance this can be added?

Could we get an explanation for this being deleted please?

"Won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2009" Should be "Was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize". This isn't the Stanley Cup. You don't "win" it.

"that lead many to feel he was not taking the idea seriously" Should be "that led".

"Somewhat softened, in that he has now ordered federal prosecutors not to go after" Should be "has now ordered federal prosecutors to not go after".

Is Obama a case of "But not too White"? I mean the fact that he is mixed race rather than blacks seems to get ignored quite a lot, especially on the lead up to the election.

Example of Crowd Chant: During Barack Obama's U.S. presidential campaign, his supporters would often chant, "Yes We Can!"

A question:

Should we put anything about the recent meeting-gone-bad?

The page is locked? And yet it still has all these tropes painting him as this saintly figure. Not really NPOV, you know. And a bunch of Take That, Critics! on the page, too. It's Flame Bait for sure, but almost nobody can do anything about it.

The page is locked, but is it possible that we could add that Obama has a doppelganger in the form of comedian Reggie Brown?

May I suggest an edit?

When the page was unlocked, I added under "Fan Disillusionment" that Progressives were unhappy with the healthcare reforms and considered them Corporatism. I'd like to add that libertarians (ideologically speaking, not just members of the Libertarian Party) were also unhappy with the outcome of the healthcare reforms for exactly the same reason (i.e. that the bill was Corporatist).

I am a libertarian but this isn't a biased edit. There is nothing "wrong" or "good" with the fact that at times, libertarians and progressives agree on some issues. Also, some libertarians voted for Obama simply to avoid the possibility of President Palin (cue shuddering), which would technically make them count as "fans" for the purposes of this trope.

All I ask is for the final text under "Fan Disillusionment" where it reads:

• The outcome of the healthcare reform bill (see "Golden Mean Fallacy" below) caused a significant level of this amongst the more hardcore progressives; they expected a much more government-oriented bill and considered the final outcome (and specifically the mandate that each individual purchase health insurance) to be absolute Corporatism.

to read:

• The outcome of the healthcare reform bill (see "Golden Mean Fallacy" below) caused a significant level of this amongst the more hardcore progressives; they expected a much more government-oriented bill and considered the final outcome (and specifically the mandate that each individual purchase health insurance) to be absolute Corporatism (a criticism that many libertarians concurred with).

Edited out the reference to his being the first son of a non-native-born citizen to be President, because Chester Arthur's father was Irish.

Edited out the reference to his being the first son of a non-native-born citizen to be President, because Chester Arthur's father was Irish.

editprotected

-Barack means "blessed" in his father's native language (Kiswahili, aka Swahili). It sounds the same as the Hebrew word for lightning, but that's just a coincidence.

• Barack means "blessed" in his father's native language (Kiswahili, aka Swahili). This is akin to the Hebrew name Baruch, also meaning "blessed". It sounds the same as the Hebrew word for lightning, but that's just a coincidence.

Purely out of curiousity and not wanting to unwittingly start an edit war - why is there an entry for The Chamberlain?

Just in case it wasn't obvious, I just went on an editing spree to remove a few lingering subjective tropes as per the standard conventions. The admin note dealy-jigger may have had something to do with it as well. :P

Although I do wonder if a YMMV page is in order...

Moving a disputed example here and notifying moderator to keep an eye on it.

Barack Obama: Although Obama is often depicted as a departure from the WASP as president norm, one can also characterize him as an extension of the trope. Obama is half-White, half Anglo-Saxon, and a Protestant. Hence, one could argue that he is two thirds WASP.

EDIT: Never mind, I'm letting blackcat's post deal with this.

• "Yes We Can" backwards is "Hail Satan!" Ignoring the fact that the number of syllables are different...

This needs to be corrected. By putting something so glaring wrong, whoever wrote that discredits any further points they make. And their point is, in fact, legitimate.

(I hope).

As I've made overtures as to how this description could be improved, I've taken a shot at putting it more in line with the "politician as performer" idea mentioned in the admin note and I think well-demonstrated in the Sarah Palin article.

Edit it as you like if you feel this was an unhelpful change. And, um, apologies to Fast Eddie if it turns out modifying the admin message was an unforgivable crime. If that's the case I'd prefer my lumps with sugar, if possible.

Just to stick my nose into the current edit war, yes, a threat sent to the president should be taken seriously. It should certainly be investigated and looked into.

But if it's found that it was made by a drunken teenager who, you know, was drunk and not really a threat, banning him from the country for life is a bit harsh. He's a teenager who did something stupid when he was drunk, not a terrorist/communist/ninja operative plotting to kill/kidnap the president.

I edited details about Obama's name. I only know a bit of Hebrew, but if Barack means blessing in Swahili, then Swahili must share some words with Hebrew (or perhaps Hebrew and Arabic share the word and and Swahili got it from Arabic- I'm really curious). Baruch means blessed in Hebrew, and I can tell that it's the same root for Obama's first name.

I think that I explained accurately why his name wouldn't mean lightening.

Edit- I answered my own question- found info here. It is from Arabic, and the example they give is like the Egyptian leader Mubaarak. Kind of interestingly that Barack and his father spell their names more like a Hebrew transliteration than an Arabic one.

To whosoever it may concern, the Repair Shop discussion is about the possibility of unlocking this page. I'd suggest making your opinion known if you ever want to edit in within the next few years.

Very minor, but his daughter's name is spelled "Malia," not "Milia." (In "Overprotective Dad.")

That portal part of the "Black and Nerdy, One of Us" trope is fake, if one would read the comments on the page of the picture.

nevermind

Why can no one edit this page?

In the Saturday Night Live entry under Live Action TV, one left out word makes loses the whole joke. It would read better as, "Dwayne Johnson took the role for a skit where "Barack Obama" transformed into "The Rock Obama" and proceeded to throw disagreeable advisers out a window.."

• called that by people who "conservatives" see as "liberal"

...this seems like an unnecessary dig at the right. I can't take it out because the page seems to have been recently locked, but um... Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment?