President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

He's got a new movie coming out with Will Ferrell I believe.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

:lol:

I read that this interview was actually somewhat serious and not well, ass kissery.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Seriously, doesn't he have more important things to do with his time?

So we (the taxpayers) paid God only knows how much for Air Force One to fly coast to coast so he can talk to Jay Leno?


What would have the reaction been if W did that while he was in office?

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

^ You know Bush spent what accounts to a full year of his presidency on vacation. At least Obama is working on promoting something.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_158902.html

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

I am going to be watching, I like seeing him going out and talking to the American people. something we haven't had in a long time.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Ok. Not saying that spending all that time on vacation is good, but supposedly the country is falling into itself and how many vacations has Obama taken already? 2 to Camp David. Hawaii. Chicago. What else?

I sure wouldn't expect to take even 1 vacation within the first 4 months of me starting a new job that required me to right a sinking ship, let alone 4.

What exactly is he promoting?

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

^ He went to Hawaii when he was president elect over Christmas and to bury his Grandmother. So technically he wasn't president yet. Here's the link. I wouldn't call Chicago quite a vacation since he was just gathering stuff from his home. Check mate.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec...obama-hawaii22

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Check mate? This isn't a competiton dude. If you want to take away Hawaii and Chicago be my guest. He's still been to Camp David twice.

And my question still remains. What would the reaction have been if George W. Bush had gone on The Tonight Show while he was President?

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Well, he was in CA for other reasons. He was with Arnold for a good chunk of the day. And W did do Deal or No Deal, which doesn't quite have the luster of the Tonight Show.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

He did do that. I never knew that, but I just looked it up. On one hand, that's just as bad as Obama going on the Tonight Show...maybe worse, but on the other hand he was there supposedly supporting a vet who did 3 tours in Iraq, which was a pretty nice gesture, even if was only done for PR reasons.

I don't know...I know presidents have done similar things in the past, but people are just going on and on about how bad things are and how big of a mess Bush left us in and how things are so dire right now. If all that is true it just seems like the leader of our country should be spending his time doing whatever it is that presidents do to fix things, rather than yucking it up with Jay Leno. It would be one thing if everything was going great, but it's not. It's the same as the new CEO of a company that's lost billions of dollars to immediately go on vacations and stuff rather than fix what's wrong.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

^ I guess my question about The Tonight Show is whats the big deal. Bush did Larry King, Anderson Cooper 360, Hardball, etc. Obama is just on a late night interview show. John McCain hosted SNL while he was still aa active Senator. How do you justify that? That takes way more time than doing a 30 minute interview on Leno.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

You know what? While we're bitching about this, I'm going to say fuck FDR for those fireside chats.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

It's really all Madison and Hamilton with those damnable Federalist Papers we should be condemning.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Hell. This wasn't the first time the American public was wrong about who they voted into office. Jefferson anybody? Especially after making the country a republic. We got that one wrong.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Since so much of the economy and what happens after a massive crash like this is about perception, I think him coming out to talk frankly about what his plans are is a good thing. It doesn't sound like he's coming to bullshit with Jay for his segment; it sounds like he's trying to break free from the Washington echo chamber and put it all out there. Whether or not people are too jaded to buy into that is something else.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

I think it is refreshing that a man with this kind of power would still come onto a show like this to explain some things in a different kind of venue. I'd rather see our leaders come off as real people once in a while, rather than the images we've had to deal with in the past. Had Bush done such a thing, I would have welcomed that as well.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Is the Tonight Show asking for a bail-out?

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

He should be doing so many other things with his time in office?????

He is on tv speaking to the American public on a stage that probably gets more attention than any Presidential address that is aired. You people really need to stop complaining that he is on the Leno show. Would you rather never see him speak (much like Bush in his last year in office)? He went on one of the most popular shows on television where he knew he'd be heard, rather than taking the easy route and hiding out during a very shitty time in America. I think it's quite admirable of him to seek out an audience during a difficult time like this.

Bush would never go on The Tonight Show because he cannot speak without a teleprompter in front of him. Even when he is reading lines he sounds mentally challenged.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Yeah, because fireside chats and the Federalist papers is an appropriate comparison to appearing on a late night talk show. Thank for setting us straight.

It's not just the Tonight Show, it's the picking the college basketball brackets on Sportscenter (where he essentially just picked every favorite!), and a followup on 60minutes also. Has he realized the campaign is over and he's actually supposed to start doing something?

And it's not like he's talking any details... just look at the "recovery bill" - remember the promises of transparency to the people? Congressmen were given less than 48hours to read and vote upon a 1200page bill and when there was actually some news reporting and details like STD education, contraception funding, and anti-smoking funding were in the "economic recovery act" (because apparently that was critical to the economic recovery and couldn't wait ONE WHOLE WEEK to be put into the budget)... his minions went around and said "well MOST of the money goes to the economic recovery..." and I had this crazy idea that in an emergency recovery act ALL of the money would be directed towards that goal! (silly me).

Expect more spin, no details, and him to continue to talk down the economy so he can scare the people into thinking that spending 50% (YES 50%) more than what you are taking in in revenue is necessary and doing this after you just spent over 1 Trilllion dollars in the single largest bill in history. And expect Jay to not do any followup and just spoon feed the questions in, with an occasional "tough" question (which has been rehearsed and prepped for).

Expect some questions about basketball, possibly the NCAA tourney, to show that people should just see him as some kind of regular guy (who doesn't eat arugula and really doesn't think the people in rural areas are just bitter people clinging to their guns and religion) and is just a man of the people. The politics and PR aspect of this is brilliant, but unfortunately it has become style over substance.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

It's all about communicating with the people, isn't it?

You might also want to see about that stick because our complaints read pretty tongue in cheek to me. I can't speak for MC with authority, but I can tell you where I was coming from.

As to the other complaints, the interesting thing to me is that it seems none of them originate with Obama. They describe so many of our contemporary leaders. Of course, perhaps I missed Reagan's 8 hour lecture series on how to get out of a recession circa early 80s.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

I don't even know who Madison and Hamilton are.

Who said Obama isn't doing anything? Christ, the man has nearly turned over every stupid thing Bush passed or didn't want to touch. However, that's another debate for the politics forum.

What I will say is that I will give props to Obama going on The Tonight Show and actually talk to the American people as an American. The man spoke clearly about the whole AIG fiasco and told the public to still trust the banks. It wasn't a normal Tonight Show interview, it was an actual conversation between Jay and himself about what's currently on the public's mind.

Not the greatest venue, I admit; but did Bush do this three months into his first term?

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

I don't think any other thread has been able to cram so many banal, unfunny attempts at humor this year.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

We're keeping it on the level the Leno audience can appreciate.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Well, I watched it and enjoyed it. Obama is good at portraying being laid back and intelligent at the same time.

Re: President Obama on The Tonight Show 3/19
 

Did Obama make a joke at the Special Olympics and its athletes expense? Anyone catch that?