President Barack Obama played basketball with the University of Carolina Tar Heels during the 2008 election. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Barack Obama and the media
By: Eric Halperin
In the past, presidents have often stayed away from the limelight, which is the media. Too much can go wrong, in laid back settings on talk shows and network appearances. Speeches are extremely different because everything is scripted, with little room for error. When a president goes off the cuff, there is a possibility that he might say something he should definitely actually say. Barack Obama is the first president we have had who possesses that ‘it’ factor. He can relate to so many people, of so many backgrounds, in so many countries and cities.
Obama has put himself on the line in several vulnerable situations. He is obviously a people person who loves to act with a “next-door neighbor” type feel. For instance, quite some time ago, he appeared on the daytime show called “The View”. The show is basically five women sitting around a table, discussing the latest news and what they think about it. Obama decided to accept an invitation to the show and really put himself on the line. There isn’t much else like being bombarded with tons of difficult questions by many strong-willed women such as Barbara Walters. Nonetheless, Obama has seemed every bit of comfortable in these types of situations.
The President has always been a huge fan of sports. Actually, he played high school and college basketball, and surprisingly was a crafty left-handed point guard despite his skinny figure. Over the course of the campaign, he was even seen on HBO’s “Real Sports” playing a pick-up game with your average men, eventually scoring the game winning basket. He showed how real of a man he is. Sure, he is at the top of the country, but the bottom line he is just a normal guy with the highest pressured job there is. In addition, with March Madness being last month, Obama was constantly on ESPN putting together his NCAA bracket. He was seen with a big presidential bracket board in the White House picking the winners with an ESPN analyst. Day after day, the status of his bracket would be brought up on screen, comparing his success to the rest of the worlds as far as the tournament went. Everything he was doing was all fine and dandy, but it made the people of the United States of America think that he was doing nothing else with his time. With the economy in the shape that it was, the United States citizens believed that putting together a bracket on television was about the last thing he should have been doing.
Most infamously, Barack Obama recently made an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. The conversation with Leno was going just fine until Obama made a comment about his bowling abilities. He criticized himself and called his skills along the lines of those in the Special Olympics. Obviously, many became outraged, including those with disabilities, and especially those who are athletically talented. Obama apologized, but it showed that his big time appearances on television were starting to get out of hand. He was becoming of rock star status, not of presidential status. Finally, it seemed as though President Obama would back off from the lights of Los Angeles and glitz of New York. He has laid low and managed to get a great deal done in his first 100 days as President of the United States.
His highlights include freeing a captain from pirates at sea a few days ago all the way to putting together an effective stimulus plan to get the economy back on its feet. Barack Obama worked well with the media throughout his campaign for the presidency and has remained consistent in that sense. Now that he is officially the president, he has received much more scrutiny for being one of the most publicized presidents of all time, in just a few months.
Everyone in the country should take a seat and relax. Every single person in the world makes a mistake at some point in their lives. It just so happens that President Obama has made a few public ones in his first four months as the Commander and Chief. Just like any puzzle, it comes together piece by piece over a long amount of time. By no means does it get completed in a few short minutes. The first 100 days are a small percentage of the overall picture. Barack Obama is still beloved by the people of the United States, and the chances he has taken should surely be respected despite their failures. The complete picture will be seen in four short years when people can make a fair judgment about the decisions he has made during his entire term as the President of the United States.
Watch President Obama’s March Madness picks here.
