"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Think of Obama as "Dude"?

I heard earlier today that the President had been on the Jon Stewart show last night.   Before I knew anything about the appearance, I told someone in our office that it was a very very bad idea for a President of the United States to go on a comedy program to discuss politics.   Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, it doesn't matter, I said.  He is the President of the United States.  He sits in the chair that George Washington sat in.  He sits in the chair that Abraham Lincoln sat in.  The elected President of the United States -- not a dictator, not an emperor, not a king -- is the single greatest political office in the history of humankind.   It is a position of extraordinary moral weight in the world.  There are places you simply do not go; there are things you simply do not do.  You cannot risk demeaning the office of the Presidency, because you are then demeaning the "last best hope of man."  

I didn't think it could be worse, but apparently it was, according to the Washington Post:
The president had come, on the eve of what will almost certainly be the loss of his governing majority, to plead his case before Jon Stewart, gatekeeper of the disillusioned left. But instead of displaying the sizzle that won him an army of youthful supporters two years ago, Obama had a Brownie moment.
The Daily Show host was giving Obama a tough time about hiring the conventional and Clintonian Larry Summers as his top economic advisor.  
 "In fairness," the president replied defensively, "Larry Summers did a heckuva job."  

"You don't want to use that phrase, dude," Stewart recommended with a laugh.  

Dude. The indignity of a comedy show host calling the commander in chief "dude" pretty well captured the moment for Obama.
It is a very very serious failure when the President of the United States puts himself in a position to be called "dude" by a comedian on national television.  Perhaps we are so decadent that we don't realize how much it hurts us when our President is laughed at.  But I think I know what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks when he sees Obama letting himself be called "dude" by a historical non-entity like Jon Stewart. 

To put it succinctly, he thinks:  Not serious.  

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