Our president is an awesome president.

[alexandraerin]

Exhibit #1:



(Found: http://community.livejournal.com/obama_daily/261439.html )

Exhibit #2:

Candid pre-interview chatter.

Comments

[thoughtgolem.livejournal.com]

Dude. I've never been prouder of a sitting president.

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

The density of supposed gaffes that actually bolster image from a guy who made made 0 political mistakes in his (admittedly quite short) road to the Presidency annoys me. He's not been wrong, but the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of unofficial statements or ones that had to be "apologised" for doesn't make it past my suspension of disbelief.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen either of these being called a "gaffe".

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

This one was "oops supposed to be off the record" - with two rooms full of newspeople listening to the feed, and previously with the professor/police THING he didn't mean to call that particular guy that in haste, or had to correct what he really meant, and well now just have to step in and be relevant. I agree with him in both cases about who was being a jackass, really, I just don't buy that the public comments weren't calculated political moves. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they say. I just get the feeling that the pretense of these statements not being official is unironic, actually meant to be believed, and that bugs me.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

The Kanye comment was leaked by staffers at another network who share communication bandwidth with the one that was interviewing him. (Much the same way that David Letterman got footage of John McCain having his makeup done the night he blew him off during the campaign.) That's a precision bankshot you're talking about.

Edit to add - The point of my previous comment was that no one has called his comment a "gaffe". The discussion I've seen in news circles about it is purely about the propriety of both having off-the-record moments like that and revealing their contents. I haven't seen anybody questioning the content of it, and without that, the pretense you're saying you don't buy isn't really there to begin with.

From the right wing blogs I infrequent, I gather that some of his citizen opposition reacted to the VMA incident by declaring that this was what Obama's America looked like ("BLACK GANGSTA THUGS THINKING THEY DESERVE TO BE GIVEN AWARDS AS REPARATIONS!")... given that, I suppose we could infer a motive in the president letting it be known that he doesn't agree with Kanye's actions... but if you want to talk about politically tone deaf, thinking the right wing commentariat is going to change their tune based on this comment would be a huge if largely inconsequential miscalculation.

Basically, it would be a lot of smoke and mirrors for no benefit.

Occam's Razor means that it strains my suspension of disbelief to imagine that this is anything other than what it appears to be.

You're asking me to believe too much.

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

See, "what it appears to be" to me is a calculated move to voice proletarian opinion without the potential baggage of issuing some sort of official Presidential reprimand of a popular black entertainer. Barrack Obama is nothing if not a polished party politico.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Except I can't see the baggage that would necessitate this.

And surely the fallout of getting caught arranging this (and since it involves people at multiple levels of two networks, the odds against it being pulled off without a real leak are pretty astronomical) would be worse than the fallout of the president simply working it into an actual inteview, wouldn't it?

He's saying something that practically everybody agrees with and something that is at odds with the view that Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin and their ilk wnat to paint of him. There's just no percentage in setting up a tricky bankshot to "oops-leak" a statement that's pretty much beyond reproach to begin with.

I mean, as a polished party politico, he'd have to know... if he had planned this... that his paranoid nutbag enemies (and note I'm not putting you in that category) would think it was staged regardless. If it's not staged, that's inconsequential because they'll never find proof of what's not there, and without proof, the vast majority of people in the middle will right off the crazies as crazy.

(And if it's not staged, then none of this would have entered into consideration, because there was no consideration.)

The only thing I could see going different with an on the record statement is he probably wouldn't have said "guy's a jackass". But then, he did say that the officer who arrested Gates acted stupid or words to that effect on the record... which is a pretty clear example of how not everything he does is polished political calculation.

Basically, I think you undermine your case by pointing out that he's a polished party politico. I would take a rank amateur hack to do what you're saying this "appears to be".

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

I suppose my category might be paranoid nutbag neutral. Love the rhetoric, but I won't believe it till I see it. Back on point, though:

The first thing I thought when he made the comment about that policeman wasn't "oh he messed up there", it was a variation of "If God didn't exist, man would have to invent Him." It might have been an instance of unrestrained feeling bursting out at an incompetent representative of authority who came down on a fellow black man... but it might not have been. If instead he remained the same erudite, thoughtful man that so very competently played his political game across his entire adult life (~17 years without fucking up)... he'd have come to the conclusion that he should make that kind of statement, both for credibility with his electors and as a way to get involved, insert his name into what's already being publicly discussed.

For the record, I don't think he specifically engineered the mechanics of the more recent "leak". I think he took opportunity to disseminate a "your President feels as you do, Jon Q. Public" message to a room full of people with a public voice. The consequence was, to put it mildly, far from unanticipatable. Went out verbatim? Perhaps the goal, perhaps not precisely the goal, but works just fine.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

The thing is, all of these things play great to his base without expanding his appeal (and in the case of the Professor Gates case, handed the people who are solidly against him ammunition) and so there's not much percentage in him commenting on them and even less in him doing it in a roundabout way.

I think if he'd been dealing with things as "the same erudite, thoughtful man", he would have had a more measured statement on the Gates case that gave him the same resonance but without causing a badly timed distraction when he had other items on his agenda. I support his comments but I think he could have used a do-over there.

For somebody who's professedly neutral, you have a very glossy view of the president. I mean, you're not speaking of him as The Messiah (but then, only his rightwing enemies do that), but you're attributing way more polish to him than... well, I guess you must spend less time than I have reading right wing blogs and commentary pages if you think he hasn't made a single misstep. You seem to have swallowed the left's gloss even while not buying it.

[aniraangel.livejournal.com]

Gods I love that man.

[blue-x.livejournal.com]

For the reasons AE has above, I doubt the "jackass" comment was staged. Like she pointed out, it's not a big enough deal to go to so much trouble when getting caught staging it would be so much more trouble.

On the other hand, are we shocked and appalled that a politician we elected to an incredibly politically tricky office, one where much of one's power depends on voter approval, may maneuver events and statements in such a way as to gain the maximum amount of voter approval? That's a little like saying, "I was shocked and appalled that my Rabbi seemed to be doing everything in his power to show his religion in a positive light this past weekend."

President Obama is a good politician. Let's accept that yes, he may occasionally slip up, but 99.9% of what he says is probably carefully calculated - like every other good politician out there.

[the0antagonist.livejournal.com]

holy shit, you can see him making the "psssssht" noise


biggest negro nerd EVER

i love it, he is neither hip OR cool, so lovely