Mark Knoller tweets:
Obama has done Leno and Letterman & the WH sees an appearance on “The View” in the same vein. Gibbs says it’s where the people are.
I don’t think any president should go on any of these shows, nor should they when they are campaigning for the office.
I think the shallow vapidity of these programs exactly suits President Obama. It fits him - and Clinton - in a way it wouldn't fit someone with dignity and class like GWB.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't think the View has much more than 800,000 viewers. Perhaps having this guy on might boost that a tad, but seriously, in a country of 300 million, we're talking about 1/4 of 1%.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually "The View" had an average of about 4 million viewers during 2009 (according to quick google research.)
A celebrity-driven chat show is obviously where he's most comfortable. The "celebutard" hosts won't ask any tough questions, because they don't know anything about the issues. Obama gets to "look cool" in front of a large audience that isn't particularly political.
How many WH press conferences has he done in the last 12 months? I think just ONE. Ever since "beersummitgate" he only does one-on-one's with sympathetic hosts and pop culture shows.
The question will be, does this sort of thing gain him more votes from people who "vote for the cool guy" than it loses him from people who think he's a lightweight?
I think the celebrity approach to being president is workable enough as long as the problems of the day (according to MSM news cycle) are purely domestic -- an international crisis would mean no more goofing around on Leno or "The View", and he'd have to talk to the WH press corps(e) again.
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