How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Have you ever gotten the feeling that adolescents are running this country? Like that time when the president went on a late night talk show to perform a rap song about student loans?
How did we get from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and FDR to MC Obama-diddy? (Should we blame Nixon and Clinton for setting a bad precedent?) I dunno. I always cringe when I see the Commander-in-Chief clowning around with the likes of Letterman or Leno as if he were promoting his latest hit single instead leading the free world. Nothing against light night talk shows, it's just---the president should act like the PRESIDENT, not a pop star. Period.
Are we voters to blame? Has our culture so infantilized that we now demand not only to be led but also entertained by our leaders? And have our politicians responded in kind, by acting more childish and less serious? Maybe.
I can't envision Romney doing a rap song on TV, but he did, famously, sing America the Beautiful to all those retirees down in Florida--depending on how you look at it, that was either a marvelous outburst of patriotism, or else nothing more than an age-appropriate (and less ridiculous) version of the youth-pandering stunt Obama pulled on Jimmy Fallon's show. For the record, I'll take an America The Beautiful-singing president over a student loan-rapping president any day.
Statesmanship does entail a kind of theater. And politicians are performers--of a kind. The best of them have power to captivate us, and move us with words. I'm talking about Churchill's "Finest Hour" speech, FDR's "Day that will live in infamy", MLK's "I Have a Dream," and Reagan's call to "Tear Down this Wall."
Question: Why do you think Reagan, who actually was a Hollywood star, seems to be one of the few modern, TV-era presidents who truly understood how to be relatable and presidential at the same time?
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Comments:
Sep '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
The entire time I read your post I was thinking about the tv appearance where Regan was riding and chopping wood, no idea what show it was on, but I remember thinking at the time how great it was that he knew how to use the media instead of being used by them. I suppose the same could be said about Clinton playing the saxaphone. Let us hope this rap will go down in history with his other mistakes. I would just as soon forget about Romney's singing. Maybe he'll do something else that works well to humanize him in our eyes.
Jul '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Reagan had an actor's ability to read and engage with an audience. Other politicians certainly conceive of the electorate as an audience, but not very many of them know what to do with that knowledge.
Aug '12
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
I can't imagine Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appearing with Leno. I can't imagine Prime Minister Angela Merkel appearing with Jimmy Fallon.
Barack Obama demeans the office.
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
B.O. certainly looks pained in that Fallon clip, doesn't he?
Merkel on Fallon? NEVER.
At The Rubicon: I can't imagine Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appearing with Leno. I can't imagine Prime Minister Angela Merkel appearing with Jimmy Fallon.
Barack Obama demeans the office. · 46 minutes ago
Oct '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Just how much further can this man demean of Office ? These are truly surreal depths.
As one who is not given to outbursts, I let out a "WHAT !" in a tone that disturbed not only my dogs, likely those next door as well. Just had to admit that.
Aug '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
I don't think Reagan's acting career has much to do with his effectiveness. I'm sure he polished his communicating skills as an actor, but people with talent in communicating can pick up that polish in other fields, too. Richard Feynman comes to mind.
What Reagan showed us is that there is a time for acting, and a time to speak from the heart. As a politician he said what he really believed, so he didn't have to waste energy in seeming "believable." He believed in the nobility of the American experiment, and he believed in the dignity of the presidency. Not the person, the president; but the office.
So to your question: he was relatable because he spoke naturally about what he really believed. He was presidential because he believed that being president required him to behave with dignity.
Jun '11
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Initially, I was disgusted. Then that singer in the back started in with his one and two liners.
"...the right and left should join on this like Kim and Kanye."
That was funny.
...I still don't want the man to be President next year.
Jun '12
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Great point Nathan, but please don't tell me we need a Hollywood personality to win any elections. Reagan is somewhat of an extinct specie. I think like what Mr Robinson said in his interview with Mr Sajak, Ronald Reagan truly loved his countrymen as who they are. He dis not regard them as beneath him whereby he needed to rescue them. He didn't seek to educate anyone, he simply enjoyed his communication and his company. Hence, it is so easy for him to simplify things for everyone. Like when we talk to our best friend or someone we care, we see things clearly with them.
Apr '12
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
merumsal: ... . What Reagan showed us is that there is a time for acting, and a time to speak from the heart. As a politician he said what he really believed, so he didn't have to waste energy in seeming "believable." He believed in the nobility of the American experiment, and he believed in the dignity of the presidency. Not the person, the president; but the office.
So to your question: he was relatable because he spoke naturally about what he really believed. He was presidential because he believed that being president required him to behave with dignity. · 24 minutes ago
Couldn't agree more that the holder of any great office ought to behave with dignity so as not to demean that office, especially the President of the United States of America. I squirm for Americans when I see how the present incumbent behaves. I would be ashamed to have a person who behaves like this representing me and my country.
Reagan was great because he understood how to behave as President of the United States of America, and he had the integrity to be true to himself.
Edited on September 8, 2012 at 2:57amRe: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
merumsal: You really nailed it here, I think. In the plastic world of politics, there was something...simple and guileless about Reagan, how he saw himself and how he saw America. I think that's what his political enemies never could grasp about him.
merumsal:
What Reagan showed us is that there is a time for acting, and a time to speak from the heart. As a politician he said what he really believed, so he didn't have to waste energy in seeming "believable." He believed in the nobility of the American experiment, and he believed in the dignity of the presidency. Not the person, the president; but the office.
Aug '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Red Feline
Reagan was great because he understood how to behave as President of the United States of America, and he had the integrity to be true to himself.
Integrity is the word. There was a wholeness to Reagan's approach to the presidency. He didn't hide some part of his political philosophy from the American people, whom he clearly loved.
Aug '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Exactly. That's why the only attack his detractors could make was to say that he was a simpleton. Or maybe that he was so wily and evil that he merely convinced everyone that he was a simpleton.
Thanks also for your posts this week!
Jul '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Nathan, I think the answer to your question is that there is an essential difference between a leader and an agitator.
Sep '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Define "cool". Because dorky and cool really aren't the same thing.
Aug '10
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
Capt. Aubrey wrote:"I suppose the same could be said about Clinton playing the saxaphone."
When Bill Clinton played the sax on Arsenio, I immediately knew two absolute truths: 1) Bill Clinton would stoop to any cheesey low necessary to win the election, and 2) the AF of M should bar him from ever so much as wetting another reed.
The 1st tenor player in any decent high school jazz band can play better than that.
As a citizen, the performance was embarrassing. As a musician, it was laughable.
Jul '11
Re: How Cool is Your President? VERY Cool!
The American presidency is really an odd television beast. You don't see leaders in European nations do those kinds of stunts. It's seen as unseemly to the office.
Estonian president Ilves took all sorts of abuse at home when he kneecapped Paul Krugman in a series of Twitter blasts about a misleading piece he wrote about my country. I personally thought it was brilliant; he was speaking to the foreign policy and economic circles in the DC-NYC corridor, and not to the Estonian nation.
But otherwise, thing are MUCH more staid over here.