Let’s not get wee-wee’d up
We’ve been treated to an explanation of Obama’s rather bizarre statement of yesterday that in August, “everyone in Washington gets all wee-wee’d up.”
First, let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth:
And now for the official word on the origin of the expression:
“It’s a phrase I use,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today, hesitating at his press briefing to offer a physical demonstration of the phraseology.
“Let’s do this in a way that’s family friendly,” Gibbs said. “I think ‘wee-weed up’ is when people get all nervous for no particular reason….Bedwetting would probably be the more consumer-friendly term for it,” the press secretary said.
Or even a more mature term for it. I prefer this explanation, myself.
If Gibbs is correct—and I have no reason to doubt that he is—it is still extremely odd for Obama to publicly use a phrase that’s some sort of private joke between him and Gibbs, or between Gibbs and Gibbs’s friends and/or family. To use such a term without explanation as part of a public address is to be strangely tone deaf and unaware.
However, I’m not planning to get all wee-wee’d up about it—except to say, can you imagine what would have happened had Obama’s predecessor said such a thing?
[ADDENDUM: The fallout begins:
Husband to our pug, prancing by the door, a few minutes ago: “Y’all wee wee-ed up? Need to go outside?”
God, I hope this isn’t a trend. It’s the first time in 17 years I’ve heard my husband use baby talk. And God willing, it will be the last.]
Apart from strangely inappropriate usage, I think it’s a case of projection. It’s ∅bama who gets nervous in August – although in his case for a particular reason. Just look at his success in shoving into our throats the healthcare bill. Or Cap-n-trade bill.
Of course, it might be just a delay, but I don’t think he expected even a delay.
Kindergarten bathroom slang in a public address from the President of the United States? Can anybody think of any other President, ever — even the malapropism-prone Bushes — who would have done such an unpresidential thing or allowed themselves to appear so juvenile?
Let’s hope Chairman Zero doesn’t get his undies in a bunch.
He is talking to, and talking down to, DNC staffers, so his language has to be styled to the pre-schooler level. Check the faces behind him, quite childlike despite their years.
But the irony remains: he’s talking about the Inside-The-Beltway types to the Inside-The-Beltway types; minions, of course, but still. Are they wee-weed off? They applauded!
Obama has an Alice in Wonderland way of swelling up and shrinking down. Either he’s a Lincoln Memorial-size figure droning on behind Roman pillars in vague and grandiose generalities or he’s an adolescent wise guy, crass and sophomoric.
If Obama wants to save his presidency, he should go find a bunker and join his buddy Biden in there and hide for the rest of his term. He is a train-wreck everytime he gets in front of a camera.
Un.believe.able
I hope he keeps speaking in front of a camera his whole term NickSE.
Howard Dean claimed “Yeeeaarrrgghh” was an inside joke amongst his backstage staff which he carried onstage. Barack is Howard Dean. I LOL in his general direction.
L [Obama Marketing Symbol] L
Another off teleprompter moment?
I think this may be an infantile expression that he picked up from his days in Chicago–although this certainly doesn’t sound like something that would come out of the Projects or “from the Hood.”
Maybe it’s Kenyan. Like him. Hahahahaha!
Or maybe it’s an Indonesian term he picked up at the madrassa….
Gray, it’s a good thing I already finished my tea before reading your comment. The keyboard wouldn’t survived yet another Liquid Attack.
Well, everyone said that he’s a real whiz kid.
Love the comments from posters at the American Digest link. One suggests he was actually showing off his French, while another suggests he was describing the urge to unwind with a “wee weed.”
One might suppose that Yale Law had rigorous language requirements; possibly including some English.
A private joke made international-public? Just another demonstration of how insular and self-centered the clueless dweeb is. Tone deaf is not a sufficiently strong term.
And here I thought that the national Democrat leadership considered *gravitas* to be a fundamental trait in a leader….
“Everyone in Washington”? Where does he live? Is he throwing Washington under the bus now too?
He alluded to Sarah Palin in the clip, even though he didn’t mention her by name.
It’s interesting that a sitting President would still be thinking about a failed Vice Presidential candidate nearly a year later, isn’t it?
Mrs. Oblio often described our children as “wheed up,” which I understood to mean “brittle and over-stimulated.” Note the difference in spelling, which is meant to recall an excited cry of “Whee!” about nothing in particular.
I am tempted to think that Mr. Obama was using a variant. It might be a piece of Columbia or Princeton slang. Mrs. Oblio went to Yale. So does Mrs. Oblio’s extremely courtly father, who says the same thing, if I remember correctly. And so do I, having been around Mrs. Oblio all this time.
rickl,
You can often discern what someone is most afraid of by what they refer to most often….
“Or maybe it’s an Indonesian term he picked up at the madrassa….”
Ungkapan itu bukan bahasa Indonesia. (it’s not Indonesian). And they call them pesantrens here, not madrassas. Both terms can be translated as “Islamic sh*t-hole”.
I guess this is another example of the articulate Obama showing how much eruditer he is than the rest of us peons.
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The 2008 Iowa caucus is going to forever resonate with Obama like Al Bundy scoring four touchdowns against the Polk High School Panthers. Only High School was a long, long time ago and now we’re stuck with a shoe salesman for a President.
American Power tracked-back with, ‘WTF is Wee Wee’d Up?’.
Mr. Oblio, I was poking fun at his lordship who makes a practice of letting us know how scholarly and well spoken he is. I suspect that he was not representative of the students who took their studies seriously.
saveliberty, you were undoubtedly right in principle, though Mr. Obama actually went to Harvard Law–no Yale connection at all, thank God. I am suggesting that we shouldn’t make too much of what Obama said; there is a simpler explanation than believing that he suddenly switched into puerile potty talk. Following Occam’s Razor, I think we should always prefer the simplest explanation.
“Wee weed” is obviously an Austrian word.
Oh, come on now. Obama is the most eloquent and gifted speaker in the history of mankind.
You just don’t understand him. That’s all.
By the way, is there any way to blame this on Bush?
Obama is our father and he is talking to us, his family. We are uninformed creatures. Eventually we will learn the bigger truths and accept the larger family responsibilities.
We are his children, and he speaks to us as children. If we don’t yet agree with him, it is because we are too simple minded to completely understand.
(sarcasm warning)