Obama-media attacks me for not laughing at birther jokes. I don’t laugh because the usurpation of the US presidency via use of a stolen SSN and bogus IDs is not a laughing matter!!!
Posted on | June 18, 2016 | 11 Comments
| Salon | – |
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SATURDAY, JUN 18, 2016 09:00 AM PDT
Obama, the funniest president: Laughter isn’t just the best defense—it’s a powerful image strategy, too
Throughout his presidency, Obama has been better at comedy than the pros—who would normally be taking him down
GARY LEGUM
Obama, the funniest president: Laughter isn’t just the best defense—it’s a powerful image strategy, too
Barack Obama on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (Credit: NBC)
Now that President Obama’s departure from the White House is in sight, it is time for an appreciation of one under-reported aspect of his character that I suspect we will all miss no matter who is president this time next year. (It’s going to be Hillary Clinton.)
Obama is really damn funny.
I don’t mean he’s funny in that he is a ridiculous or easily caricatured figure. He may be the first president of my lifetime who comedians have never been able to draw a bead on the way they could with every other Oval Office occupant of the last 50 years. Phil Hartman’s renditions of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are still hilarious a good 30 and 25 years later, respectively. Dana Carvey’s take on George H.W. Bush still feels dead-on. Even Will Ferrell’s lazy interpretation of George W. Bush works because the president himself came off as being lazy and disinterested for his entire eight years in office.
No, Obama is a genuinely funny performer who has gotten better over the course of his presidency. Watch some of his speeches at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner and compare, say, 2009 to 2016. Or watch this great spoof in which he plays Daniel Day-Lewis playing Barack Obama. He’s got excellent timing and a relaxed bearing. He makes the smart choice to play the absurd premise straight up. As far as Steven Spielberg comedies go, it’s a hell of a lot funnier than “1941.”
Like many performers, it helps to hand Obama a decent script. But he’s good even when you don’t. The jokes in his WHCD speeches are often hacky and obvious, but he still sells them. The infamous Buzzfeed selfie-stick video from early in 2015 doesn’t have much of a script, but the president somehow finds some humor in it.
Or stick him with an inferior co-star like John Boehner or Jimmy Fallon. Yes, Jimmy Fallon is actually less funny and entertaining than the president when the latter has appeared on “The Tonight Show” to slow-jam the news. Maybe NBC should give Obama the show after his term ends. He might need something to do, at least until he and Michelle move back to Chicago in a couple of years and he joins a touring troupe at Second City.
Granted, your appreciation of Obama’s humor likely depends on your political leanings. I doubt, for example, that Orly Taitz ever laughed at any of the birther jokes with which he has peppered his annual routines at the WHCD, or that featured as the culmination of this bit he taped for a televised celebration of Betty White’s 90th birthday. It’s tough for people to laugh at themselves, particularly if it gets in the way of self-righteous zealotry.
Part of the reason Obama has become our funniest comedic performer president is opportunity, of course. His time in office coincided with an explosion in online video and TV, and his administration more than any other has eschewed traditional media to help him get his message out. For example, his appearance on “Between Two Ferns” with comedian Zach Galifianakis was intended to inform people about the launch of healthcare.gov. But it’s true that he is also a relaxed performer in a way that George W. Bush, who also had some similar outlets available to him during the last decade, never was. If you doubt that, here is Bush at the 2007 WHCD dinner, reading a joke-filled speech with all the aplomb of a little kid forced to put on a suit and spend Sunday in church.
This being politics, there is probably something in the content of Obama’s performance reel that is offensive or cringe-worthy for everyone. Opponents of drone warfare might wince, as I did, re-watching his 2010 WHCD speech when he joked about sending a Predator drone after the Jonas brothers if they so much as looked at his daughters. I’m sure a lot of people got angry at the end of the 2014 WHCD speech, months after the difficult rollout of healthcare.gov, when Kathleen Sebelius walked out onstage and pretended to help the president fix a balky video of himself. “That’s not funny! People suffered,” I imagine wingnuts yelling at the screen as they watch it.
Some of this criticism is sour grapes, the long-standing right-wing belief that in Obama, those damn Democrats elected a man who cares more about preening for the camera than governing. (This line of thought is particularly ironic, considering the current Republican presidential nominee.) But – and it pains me to admit that conservatives are even in the same zip code as a smart idea – there is a kernel of truth here, not about Obama specifically but about what we demand of our presidents when they stand before us in all their guises.
In the modern presidency, image is king. Administrations obsess over approval ratings, particularly when re-election is coming up. Projecting likability, that vaporous and subjective quality, becomes more important than anything. We ask that presidents comfort us with their seriousness, inspire us with bravery, and entertain us with their jokes. We demand that they be humans and superheroes all at the same time. We put them in positions where the only choices are awful and then complain when they pick one.
Laughter is the great agent of disarmament of criticism. Yet I’ll still miss Obama’s performances when he’s gone. He was better at it than anyone else we’re likely to see.
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11 Responses to “Obama-media attacks me for not laughing at birther jokes. I don’t laugh because the usurpation of the US presidency via use of a stolen SSN and bogus IDs is not a laughing matter!!!”
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June 18th, 2016 @ 5:27 pm
We have here another fool who does not see the forest for the trees.
Obama is no laughing matter, unless, of course, you are an enemy of this country and all it used to stand for.
This man will one day eat his words and, if there is any leniency from God, he will be
forgiven for his stupidity.
It absolutely floors naive me, how many
fools are living and breathing in this country and in fact, on this planet.
It is shocking and sad to realize that this planet was once a paradise and is now an object in space, overwhelmed with
failed specimens of humankind.
June 18th, 2016 @ 5:51 pm
Don’y worry much. It will be hilarious when
Obot and Michelle hang upside down from the
gallows on the WH lawn for treason. Shades
of Mussolini! Ha-Ha-Ha, BWaaaaaaaaaaah!
Give it to em, Danno!!!
June 18th, 2016 @ 10:43 pm
Obama is ineligible for being POTUS.
He has saturated the country with Muslims.
There are a lot more massive terrorist acts in this country from East to WEST, than it was under every previous President combined for the past 100 years.
Mr. Obama acts exactly the way the Founders wanted this country to prevent experiencing by establishing the requirements for POTUS that Obama fails to satisfy.
The Democratic Journalists and Obama are acting against the Founders intent.
They are complicit with perpetrating treason.
June 19th, 2016 @ 7:39 am
@bs/bs:
Danno’s dick has choked you to oblivion
June 19th, 2016 @ 9:49 am
The impeachment of President Obama has gone from unlikely to zero. Perhaps, Obama needs to be slapped with a motion of NO CONFIDENCE. President Obama has failed to carry out his obligations to the American people. Obama is now making decisions that are detrimental to Americans.
June 19th, 2016 @ 10:05 am
How can we forget that back in 2012 Donald trump offered Obama $5 million dollars to his favorites charities if he would release his college records and travel itinerary during those years? He did not say birth certificate. The republicans even mocked him. Obama went on The tonight show and joked about it saying “yeah Donald and me are old friends, we grew up in Kenya together” I guess the Soros/MSM media blocked Trump from a rebuttal on it?
June 19th, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
Yeah, how are those court cases workig out for you, Orly?
June 19th, 2016 @ 7:05 pm
the cases against the NAZI regime or communist regime did not succeed specifically because dissidents lived in those regimes.
June 19th, 2016 @ 8:17 pm
there is no motion of no confidence in US pres, there is only impeachment
June 20th, 2016 @ 7:05 am
Here is an article on a no confidence measure for our sick President Obama.
https://www.wnd.com/2014/01/general-cements-plan-to-end-obamas-reign/#!