OBAMA DOES STEWART
WEIRDNESS ENSUES
"Bless you, my son -- be healed."There's been just enough chatter about the President's latest and deepest dip into triviality and degradation of the office -- that is, his desperate bid for the yout' vote via an appearance on The Daily Show with now-I'm-silly/now-I'm-serious Jon Stewart -- to compel me to dial it up on the internets and watch it post-facto.
The President's entrance met with hormone-driven rock-star screaming on a ridiculous scale, and he then sat down at a Hollywood game-show-ized Romanesque desk, whose classic symmetry was marred by a strange extra panel sticking out to the left to cover the lower half of the seated guest, like a modesty barrier in front of the toilet in a prison cell -- is there something about the seated President that the public shouldn't see? Does he instinctively kick his shoes off, to reveal white socks, or something like that? That was weird.
Then Stuart posed the first questions of what was, weirdly, kind of a velvety "j'accuse", generally challenging Mr. Obama on what his fan-base had been led to expect during the Hopey Changey Yes We Can campaign, and on the degree to which his administration has proved disappointing. Who knew?
That Obama became a bit testy and poked his finger back at Stewart was not weird, but entirely to be expected. As was the fact that Obama, unscripted, once again proved himself a long-winded bore. Despite being in the presence of The One We've Been Waiting For, even Stewart got impatient for an opportunity to speak as the vacuous platitudes and lame excuses rolled on and on.
For genuine weirdness, however, nothing topped the President's parting shot:
"...the other thing that might have made a difference is if you had held the Rally to Restore Sanity two years ago..."[Stewart and fellow fake newsman Stephen Colbert are holding some Irony Festival on the capital mall on Halloween Eve. Whatever.]
What does that even mean? Two years ago was the election/national-bong-fest-and-hot-flash which swept Mr. O into office. Is he trying to tell us that a Rally for Sanity in 2008 would made a difference in who won? and we'd now have President McCain?
Not a bad idea, that -- on his worst day, McCain wouldn't have unraveled the nation like his opponent has.
My best guess is that the President was trying to be funny.
FAIL.
