Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Press Release of the Day/Today... | The Best Post (So Far) on HowI... »

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Alleged Teabagging of Reggie Love

posted by on May 27 at 13:20 PM

Everybody’s talking about Reggie Love, the man behind the care and feeding of Barack Obama and the subject of a fun profile in the New York Times today.

Mr. Love, a former football and basketball player for Duke University, now spends his days on the campaign trail making sure Obama has clean ties, a steady supply of organic tea, and a sympathetic ear:

When Mr. Obama hits a rough patch in the campaign, Mr. Love is sympathetic. In college, embarrassing pictures of an inebriated Mr. Love from a fraternity house party surfaced on the Internet. “You make mistakes and you learn from them, and you try to use them to make you a better person,” he said.

When I read that particular passage this morning I thought: Uh oh. How long before those pictures turn up?

As far as my in-box is concerned, it took about two hours. Or, at least, two hours between my silently wondering when the pictures would turn up and an email arriving with a link to the alleged pictures. (NSFW, but not really that NSFW for those of you getting your hopes up.)

One gets to the alleged pictures of Love by clicking the big yellow button under the “Shaming of Reggie Love” section—wherein one also finds some life lessons, the last of which includes: “Try to wake up when you feel nuts in your face.

Hm. What to make of this? Perhaps having a close aide who allegedly got teabagged while allegedly passed out at a frat party will help Obama among working class white voters? Or raise Obama’s standing even higher among college students? Or help Obama woo the gays?

But what about Mr. Love? Lots of people fell for him—past “mistakes” and all—after reading this morning’s profile. What happens to all that Love love now? With so much at stake we offer a Slog poll, which as always is definitive and binding:

Does the alleged teabagging of Reggie Love make you like the Obama aide more or less?

RSS icon Comments

1

I wish "Neither" or "Irrelevant" was a choice.

Posted by Julie | May 27, 2008 1:30 PM
2

I can just see it. Hillary is being taped washing down a giant bag of sea salt and vinegar potato chips with boilermakers when an aide whispers the next act she has to follow. "I have to do WHAT?!"

Posted by elenchos | May 27, 2008 1:30 PM
3

Where is the "I don't give a shit" option for voting?

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | May 27, 2008 1:35 PM
4

I think teabagging is a white boy thing - so, no.

Posted by Cat in Chicago | May 27, 2008 1:40 PM
5

FRAT boy thing. there are black frats, too.

Posted by max solomon | May 27, 2008 1:41 PM
6

Could there be a worse idea than to pass out at as frat party? As stupid as that is, kinda hope this guy ends up in the ranks of the Obama administration. A couple of ex-frat boys spending spring break '09 at Guantanamo Bay kinda makes me giggle.

Posted by Dougsf | May 27, 2008 1:44 PM
7

This is going to be such a non-issue in about 16-20 years, when the Facebook/MySpace-generation teenagers and college students start running for national offices. A teabagging photo is pretty tame compared to some party photos that make their way onto those sites.

Posted by laterite | May 27, 2008 1:44 PM
8

Isn't this exactly the kind of sophomoric frat boy bullshit that the liberals have hated on GWB about for so much and for so long?

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | May 27, 2008 1:46 PM
9

I don't see "who cares" so I'm abstaining.

Posted by AMB | May 27, 2008 1:47 PM
10

White on black teabagging might just help in WV and KY.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | May 27, 2008 1:48 PM
11

it's funny because balls are gross

Posted by Just Sayin' | May 27, 2008 1:49 PM
12

@8 - Yes, but there are two key differences:

1. This is the candidate's aide, not the candidate himself. With Bush, it was the candidate himself.

2. While it appears that Mr. Love has matured and moved on from the ol' fraternity days, it is not so clear that Dubya has (sobriety notwithstanding).

Posted by Hernandez | May 27, 2008 1:51 PM
13

Someone forgot to take off their shoes...

Posted by w7ngman | May 27, 2008 1:54 PM
14

There is a difference between acting like a frat boy/college kid when you are indeed a frat boy/college kid, and acting like one when those days are 20+ years behind you.

Posted by Andrew | May 27, 2008 2:00 PM
15

Hm, let me see here. A dude - a fully conscious, if likely inebriated dude - put his testicles in the face of an unconscious dude, and the implied spin on this is that the unconscious dude has done something that is considered so wrong that it ought to affect his career years later?

Fratboys are SO FUCKED UP.

Posted by Breklor | May 27, 2008 2:09 PM
16

Maybe it would if they were Obama's nuts.

Posted by DJSauvage | May 27, 2008 2:28 PM
17

The difference is that Skull and Bones doesn't allow photography at their initiations.

Posted by Eric F | May 27, 2008 2:37 PM
18

I was looking for the option "Don't Care" because now that it's over, any anti-Obama action is just pro-McCain/Bush Third Term action.

But @3 had a better suggestion.

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 27, 2008 2:47 PM
19

someone ought to kick the shit out of those four douchetards. we know your faces!

Posted by what is wrong with people | May 27, 2008 3:37 PM
20

NSFW, but not really that NSFW for those of you getting your hopes up

Are you in my brain?

Posted by Mike in MO | May 27, 2008 6:56 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).