Obama,"The View," and the Boy Scouts
He's already done "Oprah" and "The Young and the Restless" and "Jerry Springer" seem out of the question so where can he go now to get simpering, fawning attention from vacuous women viewers and brain-dead "progressives" after his Thursday appearance (taped Wednesday) on ABC's "The View?"
Obama "made history" by being the first sitting Chief Executive to appear on a daytime television talk show at the same time he further diminished the office he holds, something he does almost every day.
Any number of people, Democrats like Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell included, felt it was an inappropriate waste of time for a president of the United States to appear with the ladies. They generally spend their time chatting amiably but insubstantially, or spatting, or ganging up on Elisabeth Hasselbeck on such Earth-shaking topics as upcoming weddings, the real housewives of New Jersey, women having affairs, and teenagers giving oral sex.
Not exactly the topics a president should be dealing with, although Obama did manage to elucidate a bit on the personal "roses" and "thorns" associated with his presidency.
No fool he, Obama knew he had a receptive audience and guesting on "The View" sure beat dealing with press conferences with the White House Press Corps. Those reporters tended, on occasion, to ask real and serious questions from which even his trusty teleprompter couldn't protect him.
He had previously been on "The View," but never as president. He had earlier pushed his book (in 2004) and defended Rev. Jeremiah (God Damn the USA) Wright during the campaign: [http://tiny.cc/3xbs3]
It must have been considered super-important for Obama to come to New York and tie up traffic to appear on Baba Wawa's "The View" since he passed up the opportunity to attend a truly historic event, the 100th anniversary Jamboree of the Boy Scouts of America.
Or, was that his purpose?
Held at Fort Hill in adjacent Virginia, the BSA festival with its 45,000 Scouts in attendance would have saved the busy president valuable travel time compared to going to the Big Apple. He had been invited. ([http://tiny.cc/crf6d])
However, those 45,000 Scouts can't yet vote whereas "The View's" 816,000 average viewership can and, besides, Obama doesn't seem to care much for the Boy Scouts.
There may be a number of reasons for that antipathy including the part of the Scout oath that reads, "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country." Or it may be the perceived antagonism of the BSA toward the president's favored constituency, homosexuals, that riled Obama and caused him to diss the BSA.
Homosexuals have often expressed contempt for the Scouts because of its alleged discriminatory and incomprehensible policies toward gays, and atheists. Teepee and campfire building weren't a problem for the BSA but they tended to frown on gay men playing leapfrog and especially going camping in the woods with young boys.
Go figure!
In any event, the president skipped the anniversary Fort Hill Boy Scout Jamboree in favor of the daily jamboree on "The View." No doubt he got better ratings on ABC than he would have gotten at Fort Hill but at least with the Boy Scouts he could have acted presidential rather than as a vapid TV personality.
(In the interests of full disclosure, I neither attended the Jamboree nor watched Obama on "The View." I didn't have to do either in order to realize the Jamboree was a far more important event and that "The View" was simply a cowardly escape for Obama and an opportunity to score political points with some of the women folk.)