Obama Overexposed?
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Barack, Media
Unless you’re living in a cave, it’s hard not to notice how many places our president is showing up, from prime-time speeches to late-night talk shows to magazines to YouTube. He’s everywhere. But is he risking overexposure?
Part of the dignity of the Oval Office comes from a sense of distance, says Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, and that makes what Obama is doing tricky. “He’s trying to metaphorically remove the moat from around the presidency, but that can be a dicey kind of thing,†he says. “People can be really fickle about this kind of stuff. It is a tough balancing act.â€
Another snip:
There is, of course, the chance that doing something like late-night TV might look frivolous, particularly when there is so much serious news afoot. And the most important thing for the president to remember about his celebrity, says publicist R.J. Garis, is that he is not one.
“When it becomes just a ‘it’s fun to be famous’ or humorous appearance — that can degrade respect for a government official,†says Garis, whose company specializes in mainstream popular media. “They are not pop stars, and it is inappropriate and risky for them to try and maintain a pop-star-type image. Too much of that and people stop taking them seriously.â€
Is it just me, or do these worries sound curmudgeonly? Is there anything remotely undignified about ESPN or Leno? And hasn’t the president been the world’s largest celebrity for many years now? Why is it a problem for a leader to leverage the attention he’s already going to get and use it to connect to the people?
Some may gripe that filling out a NCAA tournament bracket is an unserious activity. If so, there are a LOT of unserious Americans (I’m 19 of 24 as of this writing, btw). I don’t for a minute think Obama has diverted his attention from our problems simply because he spent a few minutes guessing the outcome of one of the most popular sporting events in the nation.
I think Obama is smart to modernize the presidency in the ways he is doing. Holing oneself up in the White House is no way to run a superpower in the 21st century. Now, if he starts being a guest mentor on American Idol, maybe we can complain that he’s taken his eye of the ball. But all he’s done so far is try to leverage the modern media realities to stay connected to Americans. I haven’t agreed with all (or even many) of his policies so far, but I have no problem with him being front and center. Someone has to be. I, for one, hope he keeps it up.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 and is filed under Barack, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I’ll bet this is an age gap thing. Older people won’t like it, younger people won’t see a problem.