Posts Tagged ‘Jay Leno’

You know that the glow of Obama is fading when historical allies begin to take shots at him. A lefty t-shirt maker in L.A. is going to make a killing on his “Hope… is fading fast” t-shirt.

Saturday Night Live, never a bastion of conservatism, has been whacking Obama hard for on his “accomplishments” (read: zero – according to them) and his policies both foreign and domestic.

Even Jay Leno is in the fray:

“The White House and the Senate Democrats are working on a new jobs bill. The White House said this new jobs bill could create twice as many nonexistent fake jobs as the last one.  Now, three weeks ago … the $787 billion stimulus-thing created one million new jobs. Then, last week, they said it was really only 640,000 jobs. Now, they’re saying they really don’t know. You know how to create a new job? Fire the guy in charge of counting.”

When you are a Democrat and have become the butt of late night comics, you’ve lost your groove.

“A new study determined that the phrase President Obama uses most often is ‘Let me be clear.’  The phrase he uses the least often? ‘Let me be SPECIFIC.’” – Jay Leno

I have been a long time fan of David Letterman. Back in the day when he was doing the late, late show and wearing tennis shoes with his suit.  I remember being outraged that NBC picked Leno over Letterman. Letterman represented a younger, more hip audience (or so I liked to think of myself as hip at the time, and yes, I was very wrong about how hip I was. It’s amazing how a hick from Show Low can even begin to think that he is hip in any way, shape or form.)

Now, I missed the early part of the ongoing saga between Letterman and Sarah Palin stemming from a rather crude joke that Letterman told about Palin’s daughter and a baseball player.  Needless to say, Palin reacted, Letterman reacted to the reaction (clumsily), more reaction from Palin, Letterman reacts again, etc.

It culminated in Letterman getting to a real apology excerpted here (video of apology here):

“And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer ‘Newshour’ – this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, ‘Oh, boy, now I’m beginning to understand what the problem is here. It’s the perception rather than the intent.’ It doesn’t make any difference what my intent was, it’s the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke. And I’m certainly – ” (audience applause) “- thank you. Well, my responsibility – I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It’s not your fault that it was misunderstood, it’s my fault. That it was misunderstood.” (audience applauds) “Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I’m sorry about it and I’ll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much.” (audience applause)

Here is the answer to my headline: Of course Obama doesn’t hate disabled people.  He probably even has friends who are disabled.

As most people know, Obama was trying to make a joke about his lousy bowling and said, “it’s like the Special Olympics or something” on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Bad joke?  I don’t know, but somebody thought so, because Obama called the head of the Special Olympics before the show even aired to apologize.  Here is what Tim Shriver, Chairman of the Special Olympics, said:

“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes.”

I find this “outrage” a bit over the top.  This is political correctness run amok.  He was making a joke.  Get over it.

And, this is why sitting President’s shouldn’t go on Jay Leno.  Whatever message he was hoping to deliver got drowned out by this ridiculous “outrage.”

(Barack Obama the candidate on the Jay Leno Show)

Barack Obama is going to be the first sitting U.S. President to appear on a late night show tomorrow night when he appears on the Jay Leno Show.

I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the office of the Presidency.  I believe that anyone in the Oval Office should be in a suit.  I think that the office of the U.S. President demands a unique and sober occupant and I am among those that think that appearing on Jay Leno diminishes the office.

Call me old-fashioned, but it is the most powerful political office in the world and it demands respect.