Mr. Borat Obama

A few years ago a wannabe comedian (Borat) made a movie about visiting the United States under the guise of being a newsperson/visitor from a third world country. In this role Borat interviewed US citizens and celebrities and politicians and, using this phony shtick, tries to either embarrass or catch the interview subjects in foolish statements and acts. Of course, much of his behavior was sophomoric and relied upon both sexual or scatological themes and acts. This was supposed to be funny because of the dumb questions and dumb answers and just general dumb behavior. The movie probably was a financial success.

Mr. Obama did a bunch of interviews this past weekend. Doing his best Borat imitation, he turned the tables on the interviewers. The interviewers, so pleased to be invited into the game, did not get it. They were played for fools just as Borat played his American subjects for fools. Anyone watching the actions of Mr. Obama, jumping around from topic to topic, not being challenged on any of these topics, had to wonder what has become of our values, our fundamentals and the press that was so critical of Obama’s predecessor. These interviewers are not capable of asking serious questions, much less probing and following up and creating an uncomfortable scene. Mr. Borat Obama played the media as the visitor from middle Asia played the silly politicians and others. Mr. Borat Obama has quite the shtick going. How long it will play Americans for fools is difficult to say. How much and how deep the damage will be is difficult to predict. Any additional damage after GWBush is quite the serious matter.  Particularly in the area of financial promiscuity and military adventures.  Mr. Obama has made health care America's number one problem.  It simply is not.  And no one is getting it.

Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” We’ll see.