Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"
The #Millennial-friendly Web site BuzzFeed has taken over for Zach Galifianakis as the White House's preferred video venue for encouraging young people to sign up for health insurance. You remember the Galifianakis video, of course; Obama's self-deprecating appearance on the fake interview show last year was credited with a big boost in traffic (however short-lived) to HealthCare.gov.
In 2015, it's BuzzFeed, with this number:
(Not displaying? You can watch it here.)
Again, self-deprecating. And actually more so; last year the target of the jokes was mostly Galifianakis. Here it's just Obama being a weirdo. You know, just like us, or whatever.
Someone somewhere -- someone who already doesn't like Obama -- is going to isolate some part of this as perfectly encapsulating How Obama is Diminishing the Presidency, just as he did in his Glozell interview and just as he did with Galifianakis and just as every presidency in the modern media era has done in some way, according to his opponents. (Yes, yes, this is worse; tell me all about it in the comments.)
But which is the Most Diminishing Moment? We have done our best to rank them, from least to most diminishing, below.
11. Fake basketball
This is what many conservatives think Obama does all day anyway.
10. Count it
This is a corollary to the above, ranked higher mostly for Obama's bad acting.
9. Shades
Republicans are probably happy to see Obama wearing Biden's shades, because, let's be honest, no one can wear them like Biden.
8. Gun shades
No better. (Update: We have our first actual usage! This one was Michelle Malkin's choice.)
7. The selfie stick
This is a controversial decision, but we can defend it: How many pundits know how deeply embarrassing selfie sticks are? We propose: Not many. This would however be the most damaging clip for an attack ad -- if Obama could run again.
6. The drawing
Barack Obama didn't draw this. I know that's obvious, and I know it's all a joke and so on, but I think that's important to note. That's why he's simply retracing the lines; someone -- also probably not the person who drew this -- put it in front of him and said, no, just retrace the lines on it. So Obama did, gamely, despite it making him look like he's no better at sketching than Napoleon Dynamite.
5. The dreamboat
Again, this is what some Republicans think Obama does all day.
4. #ThanksObama
A meme? How could a president engage in a meme? But, then, the meme is about how Obama is ruining everything, so it's sort of mixed.
2. (tied) The wink and the tongue
Here Obama is literally making himself look foolish, which will, of course, embolden Putin.
1. The mirror
You have already noticed: The mirror that Obama is using for this is dirty. Very dirty. Weirdly dirty.
Is this sequestration? Is it simply that Obama's people and BuzzFeed's people didn't really think about it and were using a room that hadn't been dealt with for a few days? Or is it that this is a metaphor for the decline of the presidency under Barack Obama, to the extent that even the White House, a symbol of the people, is allowed to degenerate.
If we were writing a screed, we know which direction we'd take it.
Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He is based in New York City.
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