RUTHFULLY YOURS

Stephen Marche — no doubt his pen name and stage name, probably pronounced Steffen (I picture a Bruno-like character) — mocks modern day journalism and it agents who openly display sycophantic behavior toward their liberal masters. In this case, he pretends to be an occult follower of President Obama, and he fittingly named his satirical piece of literature, How Can We Not Love Obama?

Steffen masterfully, and oh so subtly, captures the homoerotic tendencies that is, of course, absolutely essential in showing how (liberal men) deep their love affair and affection goes towards this man. That part is most important above all. Any good writer will strive for legitimacy, and Steffen almost makes you believe he is one of them. Since 2007, we have been witnesses to the adulation these cosmopolitan/metro-sexual liberal men have had for President Obama. In those regards, Steffen does a bang up job in this hit piece. It’s gut-wrenchingly funny and a little nauseating at the same time. Thank God it’s only an Onion-type parody. For example, no man could write this about another man and mean it. The art to this talented satirist’s humor is found in the absurd.

For example, Steffen writes about the Triune Nature of Obama :

“I am large, I contain multitudes,” Walt Whitman [FIG.3] wrote, and Obama lives that lyrical prophecy. Christopher Booker’s 2004 book The Seven Basic Plots, a wide-ranging study from the Epic of Gilgamesh on and a surprisingly convincing explanation for why we crave narrative, reduced all stories to a few plots, each with its own kind of hero. Amazingly, Barack Obama fulfills the role of hero in each of these ancient story forms.

….I just found out it wasn’t a hit piece pointed at the absurdities of liberals. It’s for real. And he is one of them. And now I have the creeps because Esquire actually published it knowing full well it was real. Run for your lives! The Liberal Zombies are coming back out of their crypts!

Before the fall brings us down, before the election season begins in earnest with all its nastiness and vulgarity, before the next batch of stupid scandals and gaffes, before Sarah Palin tries to convert her movie into reality and Joe Biden resumes his imitation of an embarrassing uncle and Newt and Callista Gingrich [FIG.1] creep us all out, can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.