In a recent speech about the national debt, Obama said it's time to "Eat our peas".
What does it mean – where does it come from?
Learn English – What does “Eat our peas” mean – where does it come from
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The full phrase is usually "Praise from Caesar is praise indeed".
The earliest I can find for the full phrase is 1903's The Smart Set: a Magazine of Cleverness, Volume 9:
The earliest I can find for the shorter phrase is 1876's Archaeologia Cantiana, Volume 10:
It is something to win praise from Caesar, and to have that praise echoed by Shakespeare, but if we may say amicus Caesar we must, as a scientific body, proclaim magis arnica Veritas, and confess that we have no trace of Caesar's ...
The next is closer to our phrase's meaning, from 1889's New Englander and Yale review: Volume 50:
This is the highest praise, and praise from Caesar, with no note of insularity.
It possibly originates from Horace's Satires 2.1.84 (30BC): iudice laudatus Caesare: "praised by such a judge as Caesar" but it may be coincidental.
From the first Google result:
Idioms: breathe down (someone's) neck 1. To threaten by proximity, especially by pursuing closely. 2. To watch or monitor closely, often annoyingly: The boss was breathing down my neck all morning.
From the first Google result for Obama scheduler:
The Busy Life of Obama Scheduler Alyssa Mastromonaco
...
In her new role [as director of scheduling and advance], Mastromonaco will execute elaborate protocols that have been in place for decades, and her immediate staff of about 35 will include a "diarist," responsible for recording every one of Obama's moves -- the telephone calls, the meals, the basketball games. Each step in the White House scheduling process, from request to approval, must be documented in writing. Decisions are made by committee -- a very large committee of administrative heavyweights from the national security and domestic policy offices, speechwriting, catering, the first lady's and vice president's shops, the Secret Service and so on. Advance teams involve casts of hundreds, swarming into each of the locales, here and abroad, that a president will visit.
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Best Answer
The phrase "eat our peas" is not, as far as I know, a historical metaphor. However, according to the context given by CBS, President Obama was telling the nation that they had to buckle down and do what might hurt but would be good for them.
To add further context and explanation, the sentence also referred to "pulling off the Band-Aid". When you need to take off a Band-Aid, you have to rip it off in order to get it over with. The president was saying the same thing twice.
Edit: There is more discussion of this metaphor here, as it is not a usually accepted metaphor. The author writes,