Barack Obama has ushered in a whole new level of cool to the presidency, making appearances on late night chat shows, giving well-humoured speeches and basically just being completely accessible in a way this country hasn’t ever seen in a leader. While I’m sort of torn on how I feel about that in a philosophical way – should the leader of the free world lower himself to doing comedy bits? – on surface level, I find him completely charming and endearing and a lot of fun.
That being said, his appearance on Zach Galifianakis‘ Funny or Die series Between Two Ferns is hilarious… mostly. Some of the Healthcare.gov plugging falls a bit flat, but the deadpan delivery on both Obama’s and Zach’s part are great. I love the cracks (which are made by pretty much every guest) about Zach being “fat” (because uh… he’s not, at least not anymore) and loving to eat, I love the jokes about how awful The Hangover 3 was, etc. Solid.
Generally, I just like that Obama wants to engage the younger generation in ways that other politicians haven’t. Sure, I’m aware that he is indeed a politician with an agenda to push, but I also think he’s more earnest than some who have come before and I’m a fan of a lot of – but certainly not all – of what he’s doing.
I agree with you-I’m torn. I personally don’t think it’s very “presidential” to be doing this. That aside, Obama comes off as a pretty decent guy-the kind of guy you could have a beer with. My own opinion is that Obama is not a bad guy at all, but that he was not (and still is not) ready for this job. I don’t agree with his politics, but unlike the nutjob Tea Partiers, I don’t think he’s an evil mastermind Muslim sent over here by Al Quaeda, intent on destroying the US (or whatever it is they believe). Rather, he’s a relatively young and inexperienced politician, with little to no real world experience, who is in over his head. The health care plan, while a decent one, was conceived entirely in a vacuum by a bunch of intellectual policy wonks, without enough real world experience. Of course it’s not working-because nobody htought to consider how it might work in the real world, with human nature being what it is.
Love the comments William! Very well-reasoned.
The healthcare plan isn’t working? What makes you say that? The website had issues but I think it’s a little early to say that the plan didn’t work.
The individual mandate was effectively gutted completely by exemptions, the employer mandate has been postponed for years, enrollment is far below projections, and individuals are having their premiums skyrocket. All of this is well reported by multiple news outlets-not just Fox News. I think it can be a viable plan with some changes-but it’s not working now.