Obama: Funny – Or Dead?
President Obama just recently broke new ground in appearing on “Funny or Die’s” interview show “Between Two Ferns,” and extensive speculation in the domestic press duly followed as to whether that had really turned out to be such a good idea. That domestic press, however, does not exhaust the supply of available observers; many foreign news outlets can be counted upon to be interested in this sort of thing involving the American president as well.
Among these is Lorraine Millot, Washington correspondent of the French newspaper Libération, and she offered her observations on Obama’s encounter with comedian-interviewer Zach Galifianakis in her “Great America” blog, in an entry rather unimaginatively entitled Mr. Obama, what’s it like to be the last black president? (That was one of Galifianakis’ more notorious questions, you see, if you hadn’t heard already.)
No doubt as penance for the failed launching of his health reforms, the American President consented – unwillingly, as one can see on the video – to be interviewed by the rather unsavory comic Zach Galifianakis. The American President was bullied (with repeated “Hush!” from the very beginning), called a nerd and grilled about dispatching his “ambassador,” basketball-player Dennis Rodman to . . . “North Ikea.” Twice the humorist touched on the topic of racism. The annoyance was visible on Obama’s features, but the president took it all and got in some good come-backs.
So maybe not such a good idea, from the French perspective. More like an ordeal. Of course, Obama wasn’t doing this for nothing: he wanted to get out the message, especially to young people, to sign up for Obamacare before the oncoming March 31 deadline. At one point he remarked to Galifianakis “I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t have something to push” – saying this in the same “disagreeable tone,” Millot notes, as that generally wielded by his interviewer.
