Pop Goes the President
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He knows Lindsay Lohan’s a jailbird.
He’s chagrined at Mel Gibson’s anger mismanagement.
So how could Barack Obama be so embarrassingly clueless about a national figure as important as Snooki?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Appearing on “The View,” the pop-savvy president drew an uncharacteristic blank at the mention of the overtanned dimwit from MTV’s “Jersey Shore”: “I’ve got to admit, I don’t know who Snooki is. I'm sorry.”
Are health care, immigration and Afghanistan really so all-encompassing?
What possible excuse could Obama have?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That he’s been busy?
It’s tempting to say this kind of banter is somehow beneath a sitting president of the United States. In fact, Ed Rendell, Pat Buchanan and a few other humorless commentators scolded the president this week for accepting the invitation from Barbara and the girls. The stick-in-the-muds — Buchanan especially — have a notion of presidential decorum stuck in the sands of four decades ago when Richard Nixon was strolling the beach in a dark wool suit.
Sorry, finger-waggers, that ship sailed long ago.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}There’s a sharply sloping cultural line from Nixon’s stodgy beach stroll to Bill Clinton on MTV being asked about his preference in underwear: “Boxers or briefs?”
“Usually briefs,” said America’s second-most pop-culture-savvy president.
After that, what’s a little gentle ribbing from a Gen-Y airhead like Elisabeth Hasselbeck?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}If truth be told, even Nixon wasn’t all that Nixonian in his choice of television venues. He made one of his most memorable TV appearances ever on the “Laugh-In” variety show, deadpanning,
“Sock it to me!”
As long as we’ve had presidents, we’ve also had spoilsports complaining that the then-current office-holder was somehow degrading the standards of presidents past.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}If cable news had been around back then, some host would have asked John Adams: “What were you doing on that drab gray horse? President Washington had a shiny white one.”
Amid the lowbrow chitchat, Obama did manage to praise the “resiliency” of the American people, decry the “phony controversy” over a black federal employee briefly fired and express disappointment with the BlackBerry he fought so hard to keep.
“Nobody wants to send me the real juicy stuff,” he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Like who Snooki is.
Ellis Henican is a columnist for Newsday and amNewYork and a Fox News contributor.
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