Wee-Wee’d Up and Ready to Go?
EmailABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama used his vast rhetorical skills to coin a new political term yesterday. Or else he just garbled his thoughts and ended up sounding funny.
In any event, the political world — as judged via snarky punditry and online chatter and — is wee-wee’d up.
“There's something about August going into September — where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up,” the president said yesterday to a gathering of Democratic Party activists. (Spelling in that quote is courtesy of the official White House transcription.)
The crowd laughed. “I don't know what it is,” the president added, to more laughter. “But that's what happens.”
Well — what is it?
That’s not exactly clear. From the context plus the body language, it appears to mean something along the lines of getting spun into a frenzy.
In the preceding sentences, Obama mocks the “hand-wringing and angst and teeth-gnashing” in Washington, and the campaign-era cable TV frets that “Obama's lost his mojo.”
But the etymology of this particular phrase is unclear. It sounds vaguely like a term he might have picked up from his daughters, though he might have mentioned that if that were the case.
Google turns up more than 65,000 references to the term — but virtually all of them, it appears, have sprung up within the last 24 hours.
That’s led to some creative suggestions.
One conservative blogger quickly suggested that the president’s polls are what’s “all wee-weed up.”
Maybe it’s something like the polar opposite of being “fired up” — the president’s famous campaign chant, which supporters repeated for him at the DNC yesterday.
Some commenters suggested it was the president suggesting that his critics are full of, well, wee-wee.
On Twitter, @dmataconis “has had two cups of coffee and is ‘all wee weed up.’ ”
Opined @madconservative, “Obama has got me ‘all wee weed up’. Whatever that means, i'm sure it can't be good.”
The Drudge Report bannered the phrase — ensuring another day of dominance for the new political mystery phrase.
One enterprising resident of the Twitterverse started a @weeweedup Twitter feed — set against a street map of Washington. (At @thenote, we count ourselves among the 65 followers as of Friday morning.)
Perhaps the phrase works because it can be a stand-in for all manner of sentiments — maybe not that much unlike Obama himself.
Or maybe, as some veterans of the Bush White House suggested, political malapropisms didn’t end with the 43rd presidency. UPDATE: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs provided the press corps with a bit of an explanation for the new term. “I think ‘wee-wee’d up’ is when people just get all nervous for no particular reason,” Gibbs said, per ABC’s Sunlen Miller. “So this is just — this is sort of an August pundit pattern between people getting overly nervous for something that still has a long way to go.”
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The banter between the WH and the congress, is always about scolding the “children”.
That is largely, because the congress has always been so totally engrossed in themselves, ignoring what the country needs or wants, and just playing their political party games.
Precisely why the public has been totally fed up with congress, for a very long time, and why this country needs new political leadership in a party for the people, and not the rich.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | August 21, 2009, 10:58 am 10:58 am
Obama’s left-wing agenda is failing miserably.
To borrow a phrase from McDonald’s, I’m lovin it!!!!
Posted by: Carrie | August 21, 2009, 11:55 am 11:55 am
“Wee-Wee’d”? Is this some word you only learn in Ivy League schools? What an example of his “superior” education—NOT!!!!
Posted by: MNResident | August 21, 2009, 12:09 pm 12:09 pm
Obama has lost his bearings.
Posted by: Neil Weiss | August 21, 2009, 12:16 pm 12:16 pm
I think he meant “Wii-Wii’d” up, like when you’re playing a video game…
Posted by: Heidi | August 21, 2009, 12:19 pm 12:19 pm
I think he’s talking about piggies, as in “and this little piggy ran all the way home saying wee-wee-wee.”
Posted by: userathome | August 21, 2009, 1:13 pm 1:13 pm
WOW!
What a train wreck!
Posted by: UPCHUCK | August 21, 2009, 2:03 pm 2:03 pm
When I was little, my sister and brothers and I went to the bathroom and went “wee wee” or …the other thing.
That’s what it means to me.
Posted by: Beth Barnat | August 21, 2009, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
“Thanks for the bailout, America. We couldn’t maintain the Status Quo without ya!” – Your Ivy League Overlords. (It’s quite obvious that he meant to say “worked up” – so there was either a glitch in the teleprompter or a glitch in what would remain of an Ivy League educated brain.)
Posted by: All the Way Home | August 21, 2009, 2:22 pm 2:22 pm
Good lord, does no one at ABC have small children? When kids have to go wee-wee, they dance around in a state of what seems like insane panic. But there’s really nothing wrong. Once they are reminded, they go to the bathroom, and they are fine again.
Posted by: John Mecklin | August 21, 2009, 3:34 pm 3:34 pm
Perhaps, he was speaking French, *non*?
Posted by: JC Fremont | August 21, 2009, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm
I love the comments and all the jealousy and disdain of Ivy League schools!! I mean, your high school diplomas are ok, too …
Posted by: Sue | August 21, 2009, 9:38 pm 9:38 pm
The Obama administration announced today that our debt over the next 10 years will be $2 Trillion more than thought just months ago…a total of $9 Trillion. That’s trillions folks, TRILLIONs. Cash for clunkers is winding up…..at a cost of $3 billion instead of the budgeted $1 trillion. 3X the original cost for a small simple easy to track Government program, and some car dealerships are facing serious financial problems because the Government is so screwed up they can’t get them the money they are owed for the program! Yet Obama wants to spend $ Trillions upon Trillion more on Obamacare. The CBO estimated $1 Trillion in debt, but it is such an immense program it is likely to cost at least 3x more if not 4 or 5X more. Again that Trillions. To pay for it the Government would have to confiscate all the money of all the rich people and then tax the rest of us until our eyes bleed…but at least we’ll have free health care! And Obama…$2 trillion more in debt? He’s going on vacation…Golf you know! Yep in August people get all wee weed up.
Posted by: valwayne | August 21, 2009, 9:39 pm 9:39 pm
Ah yes, our incontinental Congress…..
Posted by: elledi | August 21, 2009, 9:55 pm 9:55 pm
Just words.
ABC is really trying.
Yesterday, they gerrymander a Fake Poll to show Obama with a 57% Job Approval.
Obama is at a 51% Job Approval among polls of adults.
Obama has a 48% Job Approval among likely voters.
And these numbers are with a press that treats him like a kitten.
I can only imagine how bad his numbers would be if the press did not propagandize for him.
Posted by: Roger | August 22, 2009, 8:44 am 8:44 am
It is interesting that Anti Obama folks have plenty to say about what is wrong with the country. I’m all for disagreement, it is part of America. But what we need are Alternative Ideas not Angry rhetoric. If the opposition would say , Let’s look at these ideas, instead of no, maybe Congress could workout short term and long term solutions. But it is easier to just say NO! Whats the old adage, If your not part of the Solution , your part of the Problem.
Posted by: Bill | August 22, 2009, 10:34 am 10:34 am
Roger,
The opposition has looked at these ideas, that’s why we’re all “Wee Weed up”..
And by the way, it was Obama himself on a daily basis saying what was wrong with our country, not us “anti Obama folks”.. There is so much right with America we should talk about that and how to preserve it, not how to give the Government a bigger slice of our lives..
Oh Roger
Posted by: Jon | August 22, 2009, 11:24 am 11:24 am
The Obama administration & Democrats continue to leave the rear flap of their (constituents) pajamas un-buttoned… The engineering or restructuring of the country’s Healthcare system couldn’t stand up to the minimum of stress from the (stay da course)oposition… The daily Conservative AM RADIO media serves as a constant stress tester, The democrats cannot continue to present bills with 9,000 earmarks, Healthcare reform which can’t hold-up against (misinformed) conservative broadcasting… We have an healthcare insurance system which shares the same paycheck deduction grids with FICA, Health insurance deductions have been constantly implementing rate increases every 3-4 quarters a year (out pricing labor) without shame…
Posted by: Hiroader | August 23, 2009, 10:46 am 10:46 am
Perhaps the elitist Krugman can explain this, he would obviously be in better position than us “little”, “uninformed” mobs.
Posted by: VINCENT | August 23, 2009, 11:56 am 11:56 am
I find the term and any repetition of it vulgar and not appropriate for someone in the office of President of the US. I voted for Obama, but I am increasingly saddened by what he has done and embarrassed by these sorts of statements from him. The worse the pressure becomes, the worse he becomes. This is NOT what we need or require in a president. Between this terribly embarrassing expression and the horrible misspeaks he has had about pediatricians doing tonselectomies for money, doctors charging $30,000+ to remove a gangrene foot, and colonoscopies for prostate cancer, I find that I am distancing myself more and more from this administration. It is absolutely no different than the criticisms about the past administration. It only seems to cost more.
Posted by: Louise | August 23, 2009, 6:10 pm 6:10 pm