Obama creates international incident with 'selfie' at Mandela service

[flowers]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/11/obama-creates-international-incident-with-selfie-at-mandela-service/

Call it the selfie seen 'round the world.

Among the enduring images from Nelson Mandela's massive memorial service in Johannesburg Tuesday will be one of a jovial President Obama taking a cell phone pic with his seat-mates, Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Britain's David Cameron.

As the three of them smile for the camera, a stern-looking Michelle Obama can be seen staring straight ahead, hands clasped. As if to remind anyone who sees this photo years from now that it was, after all, a memorial service for one of the great human rights leaders.

The tsk-tsk-ing could be heard across continents.

"What on earth is going on? Why do world leaders now behave like this?" The Daily Telegraph's Iain Martin wrote. "Perhaps it is just that the current generation -- my generation -- is so appallingly spoiled that basic notions of decorum have been shot to pieces."

RedState.com's Erick Erickson tweeted: "Thank you Mrs. Obama for knowing how to behave at a funeral."

The first lady's reaction -- not just to the "selfie" but to her husband's chatting and joking with the young Danish prime minister -- was priceless. In one picture, Michelle Obama could be seen glaring over at him while he put his hand on Ms. Thorning-Schmidt's shoulder.

In another, it appeared the first lady and the president switched seats, putting Michelle squarely between him and the PM.

The photographer behind the "selfie" pic of the three dignitaries, though, later claimed that the first lady herself was "joking with those around her" a few seconds earlier. "The stern look was captured by chance," he wrote.

[GourmetDan]

"The stern look was captured by chance," he wrote.

Yeah, like 99 chances out of 100...

[mountaineer]

From what I've seen in the foreign press, both Brits and Danes disapprove of their leaders acting like 13-year-olds at a state funeral.

[Cincinnatus]

From what I've seen in the foreign press, both Brits and Danes disapprove of their leaders acting like 13-year-olds at a state funeral.

Ok, that's 2 out of 3. What about the other guys?

[Cincinnatus]

Rush Limbaugh – Obama Makes ‘Biggest Selfie Boo-Boo Since Weiners’

Audio: http://im41.com/archives/42735#sthash.RqAKn1OV.dpbs

[olde north church]

I've laughed during a wake but never at a funeral.  Sometimes things are just funny and the more you try to tamp it down, the funnier they are.
Second, the guy was 95 years old.  It's not like he was cut down in the flower of his youth.  My grandmother passed away earlier this year, in her 90s.  People weren't mourning, they were celebrating her life and talked about the things she had done.
It's also a bit odd to condemn him as a communist, then point out the immature behavior.  If he was that big of a dirt bag, he deserves no respect in death either.

[DCPatriot]

The photographer behind the "selfie" pic of the three dignitaries, though, later claimed that the first lady herself was "joking with those around her" a few seconds earlier. "The stern look was captured by chance," he wrote.

Which further proves exactly why the White House insists on providing sanctioned photographs and not allowing pools of reporters armed with motored driven cameras to have at it.....

[mountaineer]

Andrea Peyser says flirty Obama owes us an apology:

Maybe he went into sugar shock over a Danish pastry.

The president of the United States, leader of the free world, standard-bearer for everything upright, good and wholesome about the nation he leads, lost his morality, his dignity and his mind, using the solemn occasion of Nelson Mandela’s memorial service Tuesday to act like a hormone-ravaged frat boy on a road trip to a strip bar.

In front of 91 world leaders, the mourning nation of South Africa and Obama’s clearly furious wife, Michelle, the president flirted, giggled, whispered like a recalcitrant child and made a damn fool of himself at first sight of Denmark’s voluptuously curvy and married prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Not to be outdone by the president’s bad behavior, the Danish hellcat hiked up her skirt to expose long Scandinavian legs covered by nothing more substantial than sheer black stockings.

With Michelle glowering, the world judging and mental fidelity floating into the abyss, the president leaned into the air space of the cross-legged Danish cupcake, who is known in Copenhagen as a fan of America’s randy TV show “Sex and the City.’’ It was the memorial equivalent of a bodice-ripper.

Thorning-Schmidt placed her hands dangerously close to Obama’s side. The president’s cackling head moved inches from the Danish tart’s and yards away from his wife’s. Obama then proceeded to absorb body heat from the Dane, which he won’t be feeling at home for a long time.

This wasn’t a key party. This was a service that filled an entire Johannesburg soccer stadium for Mandela, the great leader who freed his people out of racial oppression and died last Thursday at age 95.

He was a man who Obama compared at the memorial to Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. And here was the president, publicly behaving as if he was plotting his next hook-up.

It was unseemly.

Michelle frowned and looked as if she wanted to spit acid at the man she married, a good-time guy who humiliated her in front of their friends, the world and a blonde bimbo who hadn’t the sense to cover up and keep it clean.

Finally, Obama posed for an iPhone selfie with the Danish hottie and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Only after the damaging photo eruption did Obama get hold of himself and regain a dim memory of his marriage vows. He finally straightened his face and moved away from the gentle gams of the Danish object of his desire.

He leaned nearer to Michelle, who clearly wasn’t having any of her husband.

On Wednesday, Thorning-Schmidt saw nothing wrong with the public display of middle-aged lust. One Danish Facebook user called the antics of a president of 52 and a prime minister of 46 “frivolous and disrespectful.” Another said it was “extremely inappropriate and embarrassing.’’

But Thorning-Schmidt attempted to laugh off the whole thing, saying, “It was not inappropriate.’’ Not inappropriate?

Pairing a black suit and blue tie is not inappropriate. Giving your wife grounds for divorce might be seen as otherwise.

But people won’t soon forget the escapades of the people whose salaries they pay.

President Obama has some ’splaining to do. To the woman he married. To his daughters. To the people of South Africa. And to the scandalized folks here at home.

He owes the world an apology.

New York Post

[musiclady]

Wow, mountaineer.  That's a blistering editorial.

Was he that bad?  (Can't tell from a single photo).

If he was, surely others noticed as well.


(Or was this merely an attempt to reinforce his standing as a heterosexual male?)

[mountaineer]

(Or was this merely an attempt to reinforce his standing as a heterosexual male?)

I think so.

[DCPatriot]

This wasn’t a key party. This was a service that filled an entire Johannesburg soccer stadium for Mandela

Uh.....the stadium was NOT filled to capacity.   In fact....far from it.

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

From what I've read, the service was 4 hours long, and started almost an hour late.  Stadium not filled, fraud interpreter.  Sounds like a real third world production, all the way around.

[happyg]

Wow, mountaineer.  That's a blistering editorial.

Was he that bad?  (Can't tell from a single photo).

If he was, surely others noticed as well.


(Or was this merely an attempt to reinforce his standing as a heterosexual male?)

I wish someone would come up with a video of Obama acting like the man/child he is. No wonder Valerie and all his minions have to keep a close watch on him. This is just more evidence that he isn't his own man, that the real president is a group of people. It's almost like our country had a coup d'etat .

[olde north church]

I'm still wondering what Lady Obama's picture's 1000 words are.

[Chieftain]

Great editorial mountaineer....right on the money.

Frankly, I can see why Mooshelle is pissed...she should be on a number of levels.  She is the First Lady and at least has a sense of how somber the occasion at hand is, and how miserably childish her husband is acting.  I cannot blame her a bit, and I think the expression on her face is shared by a whole lot of people back home.

And George W. Bush is supposed to be the ingoramus.......

[happyg]

Great editorial mountaineer....right on the money.

Frankly, I can see why Mooshelle is pissed...she should be on a number of levels.  She is the First Lady and at least has a sense of how somber the occasion at hand is, and how miserably childish her husband is acting.  I cannot blame her a bit, and I think the expression on her face is shared by a whole lot of people back home.

And George W. Bush is supposed to be the ingoramus.......

I agree with you. However, Mooch should have held back her disdain and not allow the people to add to the situation by her demonstrations of disgust. Had I been in that predicament, I would have maintained my grace, then knocked the holy hell out of him when we got home.  ^-^

[GourmetDan]

I agree with you. However, Mooch should have held back her disdain and not allow the people to add to the situation by her demonstrations of disgust. Had I been in that predicament, I would have maintained my grace, then knocked the holy hell out of him when we got home.  ^-^

I don't think that's disgust or that the Wookie is pissed.

I think that's just her normal scowl...

[musiclady]

I wish someone would come up with a video of Obama acting like the man/child he is. No wonder Valerie and all his minions have to keep a close watch on him. This is just more evidence that he isn't his own man, that the real president is a group of people. It's almost like our country had a coup d'etat .

I wonder if that's going to happen when he's out of office and not being controlled by his puppet masters.

Are people going to finally see him for the punk that he is (and who, a small number of us could see in him from the beginning)?

[Cincinnatus]

What a great line: [he acted]

like a hormone-ravaged frat boy on a road trip to a strip bar

But who cares, really?  This is the important point: Uh.....the stadium was NOT filled to capacity.   In fact....far from it.