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  • Obama On TV: Bad Strategy? [VIDEO]

     

    Barack Obama's appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno  got huge ratings - one of the four biggest nights in the 15 years of Leno doing Tonight, with numbers matching Leno's January 2005 Johnny Carson tribute. And, given Obama's Special Olympics crack/gaffe/prelude to a million apologies, these bonanza ratings are probably bad for Barack. Of course, the Barack Obama television express kept right on rolling with yesterday's 60 Minutes appearance, during which Steve Kroft noted Barack Obama's odd laughy/jokey demeanor, and asked if he was punch drunk.

    If the Obama administration's goal was to get millions of people to watch the President on television, well, then, "Mission Accomplished." But should that be the goal?  Or a more specific, longer question: on a week of nonstop financial calamity and turmoil, in which Obama became the first sitting President to guest on a late-night talk show and gave an eight-minute ESPN interview on his NCAA Tournament bracket, was Barack Obama's use of television effective?

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    Posted Mar 23 2009, 01:35 PM by Jake Kalish with | with no comments
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  • More CNN Fun: Paul Begala Calls President A "High-Functioning Moron"

    Which doesn't surprise us, necessarily, coming from the fiesty, lifelong Democrat.

    What surprises us, is that no one even laughs. Longtime Republican advisor Ed Rollins would normally at least be all like "Oh, come on..." Nothing. Not a peep.

    Man, CNN was the place to be last night. We'd say "we hope the hits keep on coming" -- but wouldn't that mean the situation would be getting worse?


    Posted Sep 26 2008, 03:43 PM by Bryan Christian with | with no comments
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    • about the blogger

    Bloggers


    Lindy Parker has worked as a ghostwriter, editor, dance instructor and a purveyor of dreams, one beer at a time. She loves Charles Dickens and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and also, straight-to-video releases with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. It's possible she reads more teen fiction than she should. She hails from Los Angeles, her hometown and soul mate, but she lives in Brooklyn, the fling she'll never forget.

    Olivia Purnell left Ohio for sunny Los Angeles; then found that she couldn’t ignore New York City’s call, and brought herself to Brooklyn where she has worked with GenArt, BlackBook, the School of American Ballet, and finished an M.A. in Creative Writing from N.Y.U. She loves one-liners with sting and hates the stench of the subway in the summer. That said, she can’t get enough of either.

    Jake Kalish is a freelance journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in Details, Maxim, Stuff, New York Press, Spin, Blender, Men's Fitness, Poets and Writers, and Playboy, among other publications. He is also the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights.

    Contributors


    Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

    Nicole Ankowski has lived in Ohio, Oakland, and on the high plains of South Dakota, but is now proud to call Brooklyn home. She wrote for alternative weekly papers in the first two states, and tried to learn Lakota in the last. (The vowels can be tricky.) She just earned her MFA in Creative Writing and has been published in Beeswax literary journal. She is unable to resist good writing or bad TV.

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