Heeeeere’s Barry!

I am torn about President Barack Obama’s media strategy this week. On the one hand I like the fact that he is reaching out beyond the Meet the Press crowd by appearing on ESPN filling out his NCAA bracket and appearing last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. But on the other hand I think there’s a certain level of decorum the President is supposed to maintain, and I’m not sure appearances on SportsCenter and a late-night talk show in the same week does that.

Let’s look at another example. A couple weeks after taking office, the President did an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer during the Super Bowl pregame show. I did not have a problem with that. In fact, I thought as informal as it was, it was great. Here was our new President, who had just taken office in a tough time amidst such great fanfare, taking a break on a day when millions of people in this country and billions around the world were doing the same thing. He and Lauer talked about serious issues facing the country as well as the trivial, like the President’s prediction for the game. It was great. It gave a lot of people an informal view of the President, both the office and the man.

That was the a positive quality of his TV appearances this week. I’ll bet a lot of people who saw the President on those shows this week were not among the people who tuned in to his speech to a joint session of Congress a few weeks ago. But do those appearances, especially so close together, cheapen the office? I think they might, and Mr. Obama’s remark about the Special Olympics during his appearance with Leno does not help. There’s a level of formality the President is supposed to uphold. It’s one of the many things people hated about George W. Bush. And I’ll bet anything if Mr. Bush was doing SportsCenter and Leno and making jokes about bowling like someone with a disability all during a major financial crisis, he would be skwered far worse than Mr. Obama has been this week. In fact, critics would be quick to say Mr. Bush was Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Heck, they said it every time he headed off to his ranch in Crawford, TX. And lemme tell you, if you think the President actually needs to be in the White House to do his job, you’re an idiot. Everywhere he goes virtually becomes a global command center. So Congressional Republicans who say the President should not have made a trip to California this week need to stop that argument, as it’s ridiculous.

But back to the issue at hand. I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong answer to whether President Obama should have made these TV appearances, but I think it’s been a learning experience for him, his staff and all successors for years to come.

But do you think? Do you think ESPN and The Tonight Show are appropriate venues for our Commander-in-Chief? Or should he stick to 60 Minutes and Meet the Press? Post a comment and share your opinion.