Pat Dollard

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Washington Post:

On Comedy Central, the joke was on President Obama Wednesday night.

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. He was making this first-ever appearance by a president on the Daily Show as part of a long-shot effort to rekindle the spirit of ’08. In the Daily Show, Obama had a friendly host and an even friendlier crowd.

But, as in his MTV appearance a couple of weeks ago, Obama didn’t try to connect with his youthful audience. He was serious and defensive, pointing a finger at his host several times as he quarreled with the premise of a question.

Stewart, who struggled to suppress a laugh as Obama defended Summers, turned out to be an able inquisitor on behalf of aggrieved liberals. He spoke for the millions who had been led to believe that Obama was some sort of a messianic figure. Obama has only himself to blame for their letdown. By raising expectations impossibly high, playing the transformational figure to Hillary Clinton’s status-quo drone, he gave his followers an unrealistic hope.

“You’re coming from a place, you ran on a very high rhetoric: ‘hope’ and ‘change.’ And the Democrats this year seem to be running on ‘Please, baby, one more chance.’” Stewart observed. “Are you disappointed in how it’s gone?”

Obama replied that he was advised after the election that “two years from now, folks are going to be frustrated” — a prediction he did not make public to his starry-eyed suporters at the time.
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“We have done things that some folks don’t even know about,” Obama ventured.

Oh? “Are you planning a surprise party for us?” the host inquired. In response, Obama recited his well-known, if under-appreciated, list of accomplishments.

New York Daily News:

President Obama should make the most of his “Daily Show” appearance on Wednesday night – charming the pants off Jon Stewart and the crowd, as he did when he showed up there two years ago. It’s a terrific show, Stewart is a great interviewer and Obama makes good television.

Then, the President should cancel all future trivial media appearances. While they may have kept him personally popular, in broad terms they’ve degraded the Obama brand.

Obama’s handlers were supposed to be smarter than this. They were supposed to use his celebrity strategically to advance his agenda. Instead, they’ve been indiscriminate, carpet-bombing Americans with the man they elected rather than launching communications smart weapons.

The result is that for millions of Americans, the very likable, charming Obama has become a constant tone in the background rather than an occasional, convincing, presidential voice in the foreground – the kind that makes your ears perk up.

Consider all the quasi-entertainment media appearances he’s made, most of them frivolous.

He went on ESPN twice to announce his Final Four picks. He went on “The View” (drawing 6.5 million viewers). He had a “Christmas at the White House” special with Oprah Winfrey. He went on Jay Leno – becoming the first sitting President to appear on a late-night show. He was on the cover of Rolling Stone, giving a revealing interview looking back on his first 18 months in office. In December, he’ll be going on the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters.”

All that’s left, apparently, is to be a guest voice on “The Simpsons,” though I’m sure that’s in the offing. Banksy will animate.

This “Daily Show” appearance makes a second strategic mistake. By chumming it up with Stewart just days before the Rally to Restore Sanity, Obama and Stewart are coopting each other. The President is killing two mockingbirds with one stone.

Without Obama’s and Oprah’s fingerprints on it, the rally might have looked like a semi-spontaneous uprising by moderate-as-hell Americans sick and tired of the extremists. Now, it’ll appear to be a Democratic Party event, through and through – appearing to opponents every bit as “Astroturfed” as the biggest Tea Party events seem. (In truth, I don’t think either the Tea Party gatherings or the Rally to Restore Sanity are staged; they’re both authentic and filled with genuinely concerned voters. But this is as much about appearance as reality.)

I know what David Axelrod and other presidential handlers must be thinking: Obama is an amiable guy. He’s a good spokesman. And the new media landscape is endlessly fragmented and hopelessly partisan; to reach people, you’ve got to branch out far beyond the big three networks and the cable news networks, as often as you possibly can, if you’re actually going to make inroads.

They’re right that a 21st century President must be new-media savvy. They’re wrong that this argues for saturation.

As with anything, there are diminishing returns. When the President is always everywhere, people are less likely to stop and watch him at any given time. His face starts to look like just another talking head. His logo starts to look like just another corporate logo. He’s always down in it rather than rising above it.

And with Obama’s media dial always at 10, he can’t turn it up when it is, say, election crunch time.

There’s a final problem: By spreading himself so thin, Obama appears to be using pop culture as a crutch.

Remember the 2008 campaign: John McCain, sensing a vulnerability, mocked Obama for being a celebrity who wasn’t ready to lead. The commercial is gone, but the reservations are not.

People start to wonder why, if you’re the President in very serious times, you can find a slot in your schedule for frivolity like picking NCAA brackets – but not for more than one true news conference every couple of months.

They start to wonder if your overexposure is not a form of overcompensation.

The question should be asked: How do these appearances rise to the top in a tightly controlled White House, when there are thousands upon thousands of requests for the President’s time, most of them with hard-news outlets?

Yes, Presidents are allowed to have fun. Yes, George W. Bush spent tons of time clearing brush on his ranch. No, they don’t have to be all business, all the time. But Barack Obama doesn’t need to be, for media purposes, his own First Lady.

Last March, in a column titled “The Obama Everywhere Gamble,” I wrote: “The American people are remarkably savvy media consumers. Over time . . . a critical mass of people may start to suspect that the President and his men are wooing us relentlessly through a permanent campaign through the culture in order to win us over on policy. And nobody likes to be manipulated, not even by a great communicator.”

I can’t end this column any better than I ended that one.