"Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike. He’s smart, deft, elegant and subtle" and of course the usually derisive term
11-dimensional chess is applied in the Rox/Sux discourse. We need to blame the Tories for the multidimensional Chess metaphor, but the concept goes back to 1907 or earlier. The two major US political parties rarely have played the same game, only more so over the past six years.
TalkLeft claimed credit for coining "11-dimensional chess" in reference to Obama's negotiations over the public option in 2009. The liberal blog said in September 2009 that it was being used incorrectly. 11D chess did not mean Obama was without strategy. Instead, it meant that there was nothing deeper than what we could see:
Indeed, those of us who use the phrase mean something entirely different - to wit, the rhyme or reason of Obama's actions are the evident ones, not the secret coded ones attributed to them by true believers. In the health care reform context, we use the phrase to refer to the unthinking acceptance that Obama's political strategy is what will get us a public option. This is best captured by that irritating picture we always used to see of Obama with the caption "Don't Worry, He's Got it." The reality is that Obama has not "got it" at all on the public option. http://www.talkleft.com/...
But the idea was around long before 2009. In fact, the first reference in Nexis is dated November 28, 1991, in The Guardian. British Prime Minister John Major was in negotiations over the treaty that created the European Union. The Germans wanted a clear timetable for the U.K. to join.
[Major's] officials echoed the upbeat mood, saying they were optimistic that a settlement was possible, although they admitted they were playing in 'a game of 12-dimensional chess'.
Chess Hustlers of Washington Square Park from Michael Simon on Vimeo.
Kieseritzky's Cubic Chess (also known as Kubikschack) 3D gameboard, 1851.