I missed the introductory video (below) shown just before Obama’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night, because the cable networks did not cut in until he began to speak.
The video was called to my attention by Ben Smith’s column, in which Smith made the following observations (emphasis mine):
Perhaps the most striking element, culturally speaking, of last night’s White House Correspondents Dinner was President Obama’s introductory video, crafted in the spirit of South Park and Team America World Police and the Colbert Report in what you could interpret either as a ironic, subversive send-up of American patriotism or as a kind of post-ironic homage.
The humor is intensely generational: If you didn’t grow up with those references, the montage of American flags, monster truck rallies, and eagles, all to the beat of Rick Derringer’s “Real American,” formerly Hulk Hogan’s WWF theme song, isn’t funny, and actually doesn’t make much sense. If you did, it it’s effective partly because it edges so close to real political risk: The presidency seems an odd vehicle, even at a roast, for mocking patriotism. But as with South Park, the video — assembled by young White House speechwriters — leaves the interpretation up to the viewer: Some viewers can sneer at over-the-top patriotism, and marvel at White House subversion; but maybe it’s just joyful, hyperbolic patriotism.
No, this presidency does not seem an odd vehicle, even at a roast, for mocking patriotism. At least no more so than in a private fundraiser in San Francisco, or at the U.N., or in Cairo, or in Europe.
Mocking patriotism is Team Obama’s vehicle of choice, and reflects an attitude which is too smug by half.
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Comments
I would not be surprised if the White House started working on this "music Video" before the edited non-certified Birth document was released on Wednesday…
I saw this and felt the same; in addition, I saw the SNL writer's and Obama's mockery of Trump as a sneering preemptive warning to anyone who dares challenge this president in the next election. They must feel threatened, to do this, by even Trump.
Not many commenters saw it this way though, instead praising Obama as very funny.
Huh. Just didn't see that. Saw only the usual contemptuous mean-spiritedness. Saw little in the way of real roasting of the dude in the White House who longs for better technology to play with, along with the parties, the golf, the fundraisers.
Gee. There's absolutely nothing to make fun of with this guy.
But Michelle Obama's dress. Whew. That's another story.
Can you say ASSbigger's Disease?
Is Obama anything more than a puppet for the crowd of frat-boys who write his speeches? Is there any actual core to him?
If there is, what does it say about him that things like this keep happening?
As the Bachman-Turner Overdrive hit tune said:
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
I saw the vid more as a sendup strictly aimed at the birth certificate, so that he could say to his admiring crowd (he loves those) one more time, Boy, wasn't that a stupid waste of time on an irrational dumb-redneck obsession?
(The WWF really nailed it there, for me.)