Monday, March 23, 2009

Laughtergate or How a Stupid Question Becomes a Meme

60 Minutes

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Did President Obama laugh inappropriately on 60 Minutes? Is he punch drunk? Was his acknowledgement of the absurdity of the legislative options show he’s out of touch. Did he fail to show sufficient populist anger? Do we have so few problems in this country that we can afford to dwell on this assortment of pundit generated idiocy?

No, no, no, no and apparently so. I can understand the rightwing jumping on Obama’s rueful chuckling after Steve Kroft’s “observation”. The rightwingnuts are like Pavlov’s dogs and will salivate on cue if they hear a suggestion that Obama has said or done something they can object to. It’s what they do. But this is now being discussed in newspapers and on cable news shows that aren’t even Fox. The original question suggests that maybe the current 60 Minutes crewhas spent a little too much time asking fairly pedestrian questions in hushed and humorless tones.

As to the rest,  President Obama is as in touch as any politician I’ve ever heard speak and more than most. I don’t expect to like every compromise he decides he has to make, but I have no doubt that he understands the problems of regular people and is concerned about making sure he stays that way while living in the bubble.

While we’re on the subject, during George W. Bush’s presidency, did any interviewer ever ask him, “Excuse me sir, but you seem to be quite clueless on some of these issues. Are you concerned that people will see this and get the impression that you might be an idiot?”, Because I don’t believe I ever heard anyone do that and that would have been a valid question.

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1 comment:

  1. I thought that was one of the dumbest things I ever heard. Especially after all the ignorance of the Bush years. His smirks and giggles all the time.. There were so many times I wanted to just slap him.. that's just how I felt... I can remember the day he was standing at Ground Zero with the Bull Horn and had a smirk on his face saying something about going after the ones who knocked the building down and I really wanted to just slap the smile and smirk off his face.. He was always that way... and then we get this crap about President Obama... give me a fu**ing break.

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